


And the Handmaid Shall Take the Hindmost

by intocleanness



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Sburb/Sgrub Sessions, F/F, Like a Road Trip But With More Broadsides, Pirates and Lawyers and Religious Strife - Oh My
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-04
Updated: 2017-05-29
Packaged: 2018-04-13 02:55:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 15
Words: 100,421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4505007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/intocleanness/pseuds/intocleanness
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Terezi Pyrope was once destined for great things. They told her she was a prodigy, that she could climb the ranks of the Cruelest Bar at her leisure, that she would strike terror into the hearts of those who would bring down the Empire from within. They never told her that she would feel regret.</p>
<p>Now, the fate of the Empire rests on the shoulders of a renegade legislacerator and her hireling seagrift as they take one last desperate roll of the dice.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Accords

**Author's Note:**

> If we turned the table upside down and sailed around the bed  
> Clamped knives between our teeth and tied bandannas round our heads  
> With the wainscot our horizon and the ceiling as the sky  
> You'd not expect that anyone would go and fucking die
> 
> \- Drunken Boat, The Pogues

The dark season peaked wet and cold along the southern Cape of Storms, bringing with it copious driving rain and wind that lashed through the rigging of the ships at harbor in the port of Gerhae with a sound like the crack of gunshots. For the next five perigees, the Alternian sun would be little more than a wan ghost on the horizon, barely strong enough to blot out the moon and the stars with its light. This was the height of prime business season in commerce-minded Gerhae, the merchants and traders that represented its lifeblood now able to operate without fear of their crews being scorched in the light of day on the exposed, shadeless seas. Goods would flow aplenty through its markets and warehouses until the onset of the light season once again rendered trade the realm of the dauntless and foolhardy. Though tonight in particular the rain had driven the crowds indoors. Empty stalls lined the streets, abandoned by their peddlers, fishmongers and curio-hucksters in favor of a warm tavernblock and stiff drink. Flickering lanterns cast pale circles of illumination through the downpour on the nearly deserted boulevards.

Emphasis on “nearly” deserted.

A solitary figure in heavy oilskins moved through the soaking night, hood pulled down low over its face. Its footsteps were accentuated by the sharp tap-tap-tap of a dragon-headed cane against the stones. Though the figure apparently used the cane to search out obstacles in their path, careful observation would show that the figure didn’t really seem to need it — potholes and uneven places in the street were avoided regardless of whether or not the cane found them. Even closer observation, dangerously close observation, would reveal that the figure made a steady, regular sniffing noise as it stepped neatly around too-deep puddles and ducked under low-hanging rope and pulley assemblies.

Up the long, winding main drag and into the hilltop sprawl that sat above Gerhae’s port the figure wandered, pausing at regular intervals to study the placards hanging in front of tavernblocks and inncreches. Studying these signs involved moving its shrouded face to within a few inches and issuing a deep, long sniff, usually followed by a frustrated noise and a shake of its head that scattered water from its hood. It seemed to be searching for one establishment in particular and having little luck.

It continued along the main drag, over the crest of the hilltop town and down the other side curving back around to the port, repeating its little ritual of peer-sniff-shake. Finally, in a dingy district of disused warehouses and questionable businesses with shrunken heads and mysterious dried bits of animals featuring prominently in their windows, the figure found its quarry — a beat to hell place with a sign out front bearing the legend “The Hag’s Fancy”. The figure, upon smelling these words, let out a triumphant little cry and tossed its cane in the air, snatching it smartly in mid-spin. Now no longer even pretending to need to implement to navigate, the figure tucked it under its armpit and sauntered up the stairs to the door.

Once inside the tavernblock, the figure pulled its hood back to reveal the face of a younger female troll, not far into adulthood yet, with short cropped hair and a pair of deep red-tinted glasses, fogged with condensed breath, covering her eyes. The work of a few moments saw her divest herself of the oilcloth entirely, leaving her in the teal and black garb of a midblood functionary. She tossed the heavy, sodden coat over a rack in front of the fire and surveyed the room. Some of the patrons were staring at her in a vaguely hostile manner — members of her caste not being a common fixture of the neighborhood — but the vast majority were deep in their cups or otherwise engrossed in games of cards or dice. In the far corner of the room a conspicuous empty space had been left open, a few tables and seats left vacant. At the center of this void, a single troll was sitting, lying almost, tipped back in her chair with her feet on the table and a bottle dangling loosely from her fingers. A black greatcoat inlaid with blue was draped over her like a blanket and a bicorne hat was tilted low over her face. The visitor seemed to fix on the dozing troll in the corner, moving confidently through the press of clintele towards her and settling into the chair across the table from her.

A few scattered murmurs ran through the room, the trolls closest to the two began to pack up their cards and relocate. Drunks and degenerates though they may have been, they could sense trouble approaching. A few moments passed, the two women seeming to hardly notice each other. Then, the dozing troll spoke.

“You," she said, “are either really fucking stupid or really fucking brave, sitting down with a known seagrift like you’re at brunch.” She stirred, swinging her coat around her shoulders and tipping her bicorne back with a thumb to get a better look at her visitor. Seven pupils peered out from her left eye.

“The two may not be mutually exclusive,” replied the visitor.

“No shit. So, what brings an upstanding legislacerator like you to my table?”

The visitor cocked an eyebrow. “Ok, I’ll bite. How did you guess?”

“Weeeeeeeell,” the seagrift took her feet off the table and let the legs of her chair bang into the floor, "to start, you dress like a paper-pusher but got the sheer brass globes to walk right up to me. Second, you carry yourself like a lawman. You got that," she pushed her chin out and canted her head back slightly, “self-important look to you. Screams ‘long arm of the law’. And last but not least...”

She shot her hand out, snapped her fingers in her visitor’s face, and noted the lack of response behind her visitor’s glasses with a certain amount of satisfaction. “Last but not least, you’re blind. Cruelest Bar’s the only place I can think of that makes allowances for trolls like you, so long as you can ramble off about precedents and such at the drop of a hat. The revenueravagers don’t need someone who can’t read customs forms.”

“Impressive. What else can you deduce?”

“Let’s see. You obviously ain’t a neophyte, ‘cuz if you were you’d have probably kicked in the door all keen like and started shouting at me to come out with my hands up. Good thing you didn’t,” she reached into her coat, produced an evil-looking flintlock pistol, levelled it between her visitor’s eyes and made a popping noise with her mouth. “If you had, then I’d have to do a little redecorating in pan-matter gray. And it’d be a shame to mess up a pretty face like yours.” She laid the gun on the table, within easy reach.

The visitor leaned forward, grinning like a shark and tittering softly to herself.

“You ain’t a barristerror either, ‘cuz I’m pretty sure those guys are required to be all hoary and shit. Shirereavers and marshaldermen wouldn’t be tramping through a perishing rainstorm personally; they got people to do that kinda scut work for them. So that leaves us with... advocatus. ‘Scuse me, advocata. Gotta decline that old-ass word right.”

The visitor rapped her cane against the floorboards. “Well done! You’re not nearly as stupid as I’ve been led to suspect.”

“Glad to hear it. So, Miss Advocata, give me a good reason not to kill you now.”

The advocata’s grin widened in response. She looked like she was about to lose the top of her head. “As you wish. First, for all you know I have a full flaysquad waiting in the street outside for a signal to come in and apprehend you. Second, you’re trying to lie low. The hunt has been thin lately, fleet escorts have made it difficult for you to find prey. You have released your crew for the moment and are drowning your sorrows in particularly cheap liquor,” she wrinkled her nose, “I can smell it on your breath. Am I correct?”

The seagrift glanced at the bottle in her hand and scowled. “Yeah, spot on.”

“Of course. Starting trouble with otherwise non-aggressive agents of the Upper Courtblock is not high on your list of priorities right now. You want an easy paynight to keep what’s left of your crew in line, should they even return from leave. Third, I happen to come bearing a business proposition for you.”

The seagrift snorted. “Business? The Courtblock must be proper desperate if they’re looking to cut a deal with me.”

“I’d be lying if I said your reputation didn’t precede you. Word is that you’re absolutely insane, that during the Eastern Trade Wars you ran a blockade alone in a dismasted ship.”

“Exaggerations. It was pretty shot up, but not fully dismasted.”

“Whatever. They say that you crashed the heir-consort’s garden party just to glass him in the gills and make off with the silverware.”

“Now that’s just ridiculous. I was invited.”

“But you did rob him, yes?”

“Oh yeah, took everything that wasn’t nailed down. I’m just sayin’, he knew what he was getting into.”

The advocata giggled again. “And I figure the story about you sinking a subjugglator party barge by ramming it with a burning ship is also exaggerated?”

“That one... I have no idea how that rumor got started. Couldn’t pay me enough to get within a league of one of those floating nightmares. I’ll take credit for it though.”

“Mm. So yes, ‘desperate’ is definitely a watchword here.”

“Well, that’s a pity. Because, y’see, the hell of the thing is...” she took a long pull from her bottle and slammed it down on the table, “I don’t work with screws. So why don’t you piss off?”

“You’ll be very well compensated.”

“That’s sweet of you. Piss off.”

The advocata leaned in close and spoke in a harsh whisper, “I never said this business was officially sanctioned.”

“So, what? Am I speaking to a rogue agent of the Courtblock? That’s a new one for me; you guys usually don’t live very long.”

“Believe me, I’m well aware of that fact.” Casually, almost absentmindedly, she raised her hand to her collar, reached within, and raised a small icon at the end of a chain into view.

The seagrift went pale, sobering instantly. “Put that away! God’s fucking fangs woman, put that away!” She twisted in her seat, scanning the room. “Ok, congratulations, you have my attention. You goddamn idiot. Not here, though. In the back. The walls have auriculars.”

* * *

 

The back of The Hag’s Fancy was a dark little den set aside for discussions that would be better kept out of sight, hidden behind a door designed to blend into the wall. Furniture too battered for the main room went there to malinger, a selection of ragged chairs and a table that looked like someone had taken an axe to it. The fireplace had obviously not been used for quite some time. Once inside, the seagrift closed and locked the door behind them. It was the first time the advocata had gotten a good look, smell rather, at her — wiry frame underneath her coat, a huge mass of hair that hadn't seen a brush in recent memory, a face made for passing smalltalk at blueblood soirees turned salt-toughened and wind-burned by a life at sea.

“Vriska Serket,” the seagrift said, tossing off a small insolent salute to the advocata. “But I guess you already knew that.”

“Terezi Pyrope,” the advocata replied, returning the gesture with even less sincerity and another little laugh.

“So how exactly did a Sufferite come to be a lackey of the Cruelest Bar? If you don’t mind me asking.”

“I do mind, actually.”

“Whatever. Kind of buried the lede, didn’t you? Would have saved us both a lot of awkward dickering if you’d just sauntered up like, ‘hello, I’m a bloody heretic looking to cut a deal.’”

“I enjoyed the dickering. It’s fun to watch people’s minds work.”

“That’s pretty creepy.”

“You being a bastion of normalcy.”

“Compared to the giggling blind girl with leveller sympathies, I kinda am.”

“You think so?” Terezi hooked her foot around the leg of a chair and pulled it towards her to let her sit. “Serket, Vriska: approximately 13 sweeps old. Raised by one of the few remaining specimens of _lusus naturae araneae horribilis_. Wanted since age eight for callous neglect of guardian and suspected lususcide. Known telepath, highly unusual for her caste. Disappears from most official records between the ages of nine and ten, reappearing to begin racking up a battery of charges for piracy, wantonness, aggravated dissipation, murder and assault in a whole bunch of different degrees, theft, graft, plunder, pelf, and loitering with intent.” She lowered her glasses to shoot a condescending blind look at Vriska, who shuddered and pointedly avoided making eye contact with her. “Let me know when this stops being ‘normal’.”

“What the hell happened to your eyes?”

“Got into a staring contest and lost really hard.”

“Fine, keep your secrets. You memorized my dossier?”

“It made for good bedtime reading.”

“Ok so on top of everything else you’re an obsessive bureaucratic stalker. That’s tremendous. Obviously this business arrangement of yours is already destined for greatness.”

“So you’ll consider my offer?”

“If you’ll stop flexing your legal acumen at me long enough to tell me what you’re proposing.”

Terezi leaned back in her chair, tipping slightly as the uneven legs shifted underneath her. “Two weeks ago a prisoner vanished from Her Imperious Condescension’s Grand Prison, colloquially known as the Maze, right out from under round the clock observation. It’s a total debacle, the broadsheets are having a field night with the story. Heads have been rolling ever since and will continue to roll until he is found. I need your help to make sure that doesn’t happen. He must be removed to sympathetic parties safely outside the borders of the Empire quickly and at all costs.”

Vriska stared at her for a long time, then turned and left the room. From outside came a brief, loud conversation, and she returned bearing a pair of bottles and two thick-bottomed mugs.

“Sorry, the tavernkeeper was giving me shit about my tab,” she said as she arranged the alcohol on the table. She bit the cork out of one of them, filled the mugs, and slid one over to Terezi. “Drink. It’s swill.”

Taking a sip, Terezi was inclined to say that Vriska was being generous with her description. She pulled a face as her palate was inundated with a taste of chemical anise that went straight up her sinuses like a length of barbed wire.

“How do you stomach this crap?” she said between coughs.

“Very carefully.” Vriska replied, downing her entire cup in one go without so much as flinching. “If I have this right, you want to hire an entire ship to smuggle one troll out of the Empire.”

“Not just any troll,” Terezi said as she grudgingly accepted a refill, “he represents an existential threat to the Empire just by continuing to breathe. He’s a symbol, a rallying point for thousands. His survival is of the utmost importance.”

“And you trust me of all people with this guy’s life.”

“I’m as shocked as you are, believe me. But yes, I think so.”

“Why?”

Terezi laughed, high and sharp. “Why, Miss Serket, because you’re absolutely atrocious! Leaving aside the nitty-gritty of your individual offenses, your profile betrays a complete lack of hemopiety, contempt for social niceties, and a personality that I can only conclude runs entirely off sheer bloody-mindedness. Suffice to say, you are not the type to turn state’s evidence.”

“Maybe I’ll decide to kill him just for the hell of it.”

“Possible! However, unlikely. I believe you view a job like this as a challenge. Why did you run a blockade in a crippled ship?”

Vriska shrugged. “It was there and I could make a killing unloading the cargo if I survived.”

“Exactly, because you’re insane. I’m not just offering you a job, I’m offering you the opportunity of a lifetime,” she leaned across the table towards Vriska, her seared eyes fairly glowing in the dim light. “I’m offering you the chance to spirit Karkat Vantas away from right under Her Imperious Condescension’s cartilaginous nub, to spite the Head Bitch in Charge worse than anyone has ever spited her before. And I’m offering to pay you for your time. How does that grab you?”

Vriska looked stunned. “The Militant himself... They’ll double the bounty on my head for that alone. Hell, triple it even.”

“Your name will live in infamy forever. Right thinking, conscientious trolls the Empire over will spit it like a curse.” Terezi’s smile could have cut a bolt of silk in midair.

Vriska seemed to turn the idea over in her head. Finally, she raised her glass for a toast. “Pyrope, I think I can do business with you. To spite.”

“To spite,” Terezi agreed, clinking her cup against Vriska’s. They drank, one with aplomb and the other with hesitance.

“So what’re we talking about in terms of payment here?”

“Fifty thousand, twenty up front and thirty upon completion of the job.”

Vriska choked on her drink. “God’s fangs! Where’d you scare up that kind of money?”

“Confiscated assets, mostly. Turns out the answer to the question ‘who watches the watchtrolls’ is ‘not nearly enough people’.”

There came the resounding _bang_ of the tavernblock’s door being kicked open and the sound of feet tromping in out of the rain. A voice shouted, “Advocata Pyrope, you are ordered to surrender yourself and submit to the judgment of the Upper Courtblock!”

Vriska was out of her seat like a shot, producing her flintlock from within her coat. She pressed herself to the wall by the door and opened it a crack, peering out into the main room.

“Oops. Seems that you’re busted,” she said, “a neophyte and a passel of heavies, six of ‘em. Looks keen. I fucking hate keen.”

“Impossible!” Terezi replied, her smile vanishing, “I was so careful! For all they should know I’m on the opposite side of the Empire.”

“What’s your call, Pyrope? Advance or abscond?”

“I... I don’t know. They have me cornered, but I don’t know if I’m ready to kill a colleague.”

“Ain’t your colleague no more,” Vriska smirked wickedly at her, “you’re wanted now, babe. Welcome to the club.”

“Oh god, shut up.”

“You’re a Sufferite, how many lowbloods you think this prick has strung up for nothin’ more than being in the wrong place at the wrong time?”

“How many have you?”

“I don’t string people up. I just kill ‘em, and I don’t pretend I’m doing it for any higher reason than than the law of Better You Than Me, Pal. What about you? How’s your conscience doing?”

“That’s none of your business.”

“Ooooooooh, not too well then? You got regrets, Pyrope?”

“I said it’s none of your business, Serket!”

“Ah c’mon. Don’t think of it as being a hunted troll. Think of it as liberating. You get the chance to start paying down some of your debts.”

More shouting from outside trickled into the room as the neophyte and his enforcers started tossing patrons out. Literally tossing. A window smashed as someone exited through it at velocity. “Advocata Pyrope, you will surrender!”

Terezi rose slowly, face burning with anger. “I have no debts to pay.”

“If you say so. I ain’t passed the Bar but I know a little bit, and no one climbs the ranks without stretching a few necks.”

“What you don’t know could fill a fucking codex.”

“The clock’s ticking Pyrope, advance or abscond. This guy looks like someone who has it coming, and nothing seals a contract like a little blood. Preferably someone else’s.”

“I...” she felt helpless. This was a line that she knew one night would have to be crossed, and now that the time had come she was unable to summon the courage.

Something flickered across Vriska’s face, her awful smirk wavered for a moment and faded away. “You want me to handle it?” she said.

“What?”

“I’ll take ‘em out and then you can bail when the coast is clear. They’ll just be a bunch of overzealous morons who got all hopped up on authority and decided to walk into the wrong goddamn tavernblock.”

Furniture smashed in the main room. A gunshot rang out and someone started screaming.

“I don’t need your protection.” Terezi said, but her heart wasn’t in it. An out was being offered and she was inclined to take it.

“Ain’t protecting you. We’re partners now; you wanted a spiteful lunatic and you got one. Be at the harbor at moonrise in two nights time with your cargo. Gonna have to leave in a hurry after this. Ask for the _Chelicerate Incarnadine_. Be discreet — this one’s a freebie, but if you drop more trouble in my lap I’ll be pissed.”

She adjusted her bicorne, threw the door open and stepped out into the tavernblock.

* * *

 

Neophyte-Tipstaff First Class Macrov Vigile was having a bad night. Pursuing a sighting of the renegade advocata had led to him stomping across the entire blasted city in the middle of a sopping downpour. His boots were full of water, his enforcer cadre were slow and stupid, the idiot tavernkeeper he had just shot was starting to really get annoying with his screaming, and he’d run out of drunks to bounce off the walls. One of his hirelings returned from the upstairs respiteblocks, shaking his head.

“Nothin’, boss.”

“Advocata Pyrope, things are going to go very poorly for you indeed if I have to come pull you out of your hole!” he shouted, relieving some of his frustration by smashing a few bottles at random with the flat of his sword. When the door to the back of the tavernblock opened he almost cheered. Perhaps the traitor did have some sense left.

Except it was not the traitor that emerged. Instead, he found himself staring down a blueblood in a naval greatcoat. She strode casually across the floor towards him, arms folded behind her back like a ship’s captain inspecting the watch. Macrov’s enforcers looked at each other and began readying their weapons. Pistol hammers clicked into place and blades hissed as they cleared scabbards.

“Gentlemen! Are we having a problem here?” her tone was loose and conversational, as if she was addressing her crew rather than agents of the Upper Courtblock.

“We will be if you do not remove yourself from the premises _instanter_ , woman,” Macrov didn’t like the way she was smiling.

“Hah, wow. You seem like a barrel of fun. I’m just asking because you guys are putting a major damper on my night. And if there’s one thing I can’t stand, its a bunch of jackasses interrupting my ‘me’ time.”

“You can file a complaint with the Cruelest Bar. They may even deign to scoff at it before pitching it in the trash.”

She tilted her head to one side. “Nah. I think I’d like to register it with you in person,” her arm swung around, discharging the pistol in her hand and putting a hole through the face of one of the enforcers.

“Detain her!” Macrov shouted.

The first thug to reach her caught a vicious crack across the temple from the butt of her pistol. She held him by the neck, hauling him around to shield herself as Macrov’s cadre unloaded their pistols at her while she freed a heavy saber with a hooked blade from its scabbard and let her spent flintlock fall, still smoking, to the floor.

“Five to one, guys,” she said, shoving the corpse away, “pretty good odds for you. Why don’t you stop pussyfooting around?”

The enforcers obliged, surrounding her as Macrov held back. The two behind her moved first, attempting to take her while the two in front held her attention. To their surprise she countercharged the front enforcers, catching one with the point of her blade as she plowed through them. Stepping over the dying troll, she caught a chair up in her hand and whipped it at her attackers, knocking one senseless as it smashed into him.

“Four to one,” she said, “still got time to beat the spread.”

They rushed her again, drawing an exasperated sigh from the neophyte. He found himself wishing that his cadre had been selected for qualities other than intimidation factor. The woman fell back from the goons, hopped neatly on top of one of the tavernblock’s long communal tables and started kicking flatware into their faces. She was beginning to get on Macrov’s very last nerve.

Having run out of plates to annoy people with, the woman dropped onto the far side of the table from the enforcers and, seizing it with both hands, upended the entire thing at them.

“C’mon! You guys tryin’ to _bore_ me to death?” she cackled as she pulled a second pistol from her coat.

One of the enforcers broke ranks, howling with rage as he leapt over the overturned table to throw himself at her. His foot caught on the edge and she stepped aside as he toppled inelegantly to the floor. She dropped her arm, not even looking at the man, to blow the back of his head off with her flintlock.

“Three to one. Hey neophyte, your boys are garbage.”

This time it was her turn to leap the table, stepping on the edge to propel herself forward and dropping in between the remaining enforcers. One fell instantly, her stomach pierced by the seagrift’s sword. The other stumbled away from her as she turned, dropped his weapon and bolted for the door. She let him go.

“One to one, neophyte. How lucky you feelin’ right about now?”

“I don’t think I need to be ‘lucky’ to put one seagrift in the ground.” Macrov fell into a fighting stance.

“Killed your heavies easily enough, didn’t I?”

“They were idiots. The Courtblock thanks you for clearing out some dross.”

“My pleasure,” she lunged at him and he parried easily.

The two exchanged several blows inconclusively, not so much pressing for an advantage as attempting to take the measure of their opponent.

“I’ll have you know that I went top of my class in the academic dueling societies,” he gestured towards a long, ruler-straight scar on his cheek.

“That’s nice. I didn’t have to get schoolfed on how to kill people, personally. And I got meaner scars than that just from trying to duck out on the bill at a brothel,” she arced a cut towards his face, was parried, fended off his riposte and followed with a thrust that caught the fringe of his coat.

The two locked into the melee, hacking away at each other with a great ringing of steel on steel. Macrov knew himself to be more technically proficient, but his opponent fought with savage efficiency nonetheless. She had no form to speak of; she should have by all rights left herself open to attack with every wild strike. But the openings simply never appeared. Macrov would parry a blow that left his arm stinging from the impact and attempt to capitalize, only for her to twist herself away from his attack at the last second and come right back at him. It was the brutal, chaotic style of someone raised in the knowledge that form was secondary to not being the one who ended up dead at the end of the fight. She threw herself at him, laughing in accompaniment to the clang of their swords. He opened a wound on her arm and she didn’t seem to even notice, taking advantange of the opening to return the favor. Their blades clashed together and they pressed against each other, trying to force each other back. In the end, the seagrift won. Macrov stumbled, found his footing, and prepared for her to follow on her advantage.

Her follow-up never came. She moved to attack but trod upon a bottle rolling around on the floor. Her leg shot out from under her and she landed flat on her back, her sword imbedding itself in the floorboards. In an instant, the tip of Macrov’s blade was at her throat.

“I know you. I know your face,” he said. “I think this might not have been a total waste after all.”

“You must be new to the job if you’re only just now twigging onto who I am.” The back of her head was pressed hard into the floorboards. Her horns dragged against the grain of the wood.

“Forget the traitor. You will make me a very rich troll indeed, Miss Serket.” His face was all cold delight.

“Oh, indeed?” she sneered. “Goddamn pencil-neck! Can’t believe this ignominious shit.”

“They’ll make me a full advocatus for presenting your head to the Courtblock. What luck.” 

“Poor form, neophyte! Should have spent more time reading up on your Grigor Felbrief!” came a voice from behind him.

Macrov turned just in time to catch Terezi Pyrope’s dragon-headed swordstick through his chest. He sank to his knees, his breath rattling wetly in his ruined lungs. Jerking her weapon loose, Terezi knelt beside him.

“To wit: ‘gloating is the vice of the imminently deceased,’” she said.

Macrov Vigile was having a very, very bad night.

* * *

 

“So,” Vriska said, propping herself up on her elbows, “no debts to pay, huh?”

“None whatsoever,” Terezi said, helping Vriska to her feet.

“Keep telling yourself that, maybe it'll stick.” 

Terezi didn’t offer a reply. She felt nauseous. The line had been crossed, and she could never come back from it. She was well and truly adrift. Somehow, she managed to make herself touch the neophyte's coat long enough to wipe her weapon clean.

“It’s going to get worse.” Vriska was looking at her in that odd way again.

“I know.”

“Do you? Did you actually think about any of this shit before you did it? Did you think it would just be as easy as walking away?”

“Again, Serket, we are wandering into territory that is none of your concern.”

“I believe you’ll find it is very much my concern,” she was looming over Terezi now, uncomfortably close, a note of hardness replacing the previous flippancy in her voice, “because I need to know that this is a ride you’re prepared to take. I don’t extend offers twice so, if you’re having doubts, here’s where you get off.”

“You’re pretty ungrateful for someone who just had her life saved,” Terezi said.

“Gratitude is kinda taking a backseat right now to figuring out whether my partner in this little endeavor is going to have the guts to see it through.”

Terezi jabbed her cane at the dead neophyte. “This isn’t enough proof for you?”

“You hesitated. You waited until you didn’t have a choice but to step in.”

A prickling sensation started at the base of Terezi’s skull and began working its way slowly upwards. It felt like a fingernail being dragged lightly over the surface of her thinkpan. Combined with the discordant scent of blood coming off the neophyte and Vriska’s wound, her head was beginning to swim.

“I could have let him kill you.”

“No, you couldn’t. If I go down, your ass is in a real bind,” Vriska’s awful smirk returned, “not to mention that you’re obsessed with me.”

“This is a dominance thing, isn’t it? I caught you in a compromised position and now you’re trying to take me down a peg to soothe your ego. And incidentally, if you don’t stop trying to read my mind, I’m going to hurt you.”

The prickling sensation in Terezi’s head disappeared.

“Wow! Sensitive much? Lighten up, Pyrope,” she rapped Terezi between the horns with her knuckles, “you got your shit locked down tight. Need to shove a lit grenade in your auricular if I want to crack that place open.”

Terezi caught Vriska’s wrist in a tight grip. “First proviso of our agreement — never do that again.”

“Fine. Here’s my terms — don’t dither on me. Ain’t got time for ethical quandaries where we’re going,” she yanked her hand away from Terezi and went to recover her discarded pistols from the floor, tucking them safely away inside her coat. “You should probably get moving. We sail with the tide, with or without you.”

Terezi nodded. “Two nights, moonrise, _Chelicerate Incarnadine_ , discreet.”

“I’ll want my goddamn money too. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go pull a crew out of thin air.” She paused at the door to the tavernblock, looking over her shoulder for a moment like she wanted to say something. Whatever sentiment she had in mind was left unsaid, however, and she stepped out into the rain and wind.


	2. Embarking

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "No man will be a sailor who has contrivance enough to get himself into jail; for being in a ship is being in a jail, with the chance of being drowned."  
> \- Samuel Johnson

Finding the _Incarnadine_ was a simple matter — a few caegars jangled under the noses of some appropriately disreputable types around the docks led Terezi and the porters carrying her cargo down to a shabby, little used wharf at the far end of the harbor where a weathered but sturdy corvette was moored. Her nose wrinkled at the powerful smell of tarred wood washing off the vessel; here and there she could pick out the scent of patches in the hull where holes had been blown and subsequently repaired. A few trolls were busy up on the deck, occassionally casting curious glances at her. She sighed to herself, dismayed at the thought of being trapped on board this hulk with its dreadful captain for any appreciable length of time. Oh well, necessity compels.

A yellowblood in an untidy waistcoat and trousers was sitting on a barrel by the end of the gangplank, apparently engrossed in a broadsheet. Salacious headlines screamed out from the front page announcing a total lack of progress in the search for the disappeared Karkat Vantas, along with an exhaustive list of officials who had been executed in connection with the incident for rank incompetence. Terezi dismissed her porters with a few coins, leaving her and her cargo, a trunk of personal effects and a large wooden crate stamped with “FRAGILE” in several dialects, alone with him.

“We already cleared our lading with the harbormaster. If you wanna search the ship I’m gonna need some documentation,” the yellowblood said without looking up from his broadsheet as she approached him. There was a slight lisp to his words.

“The only documentation I’d need to justify a search and seizure of this tub is a picture of its owner, friend,” Terezi said.

The yellowblood snorted. “Maybe in the capital, lady. But Gerhae doesn’t like it when the screws come around and start driving away business. Now flash some papers at me or hit the planks.”

“As much as I’d love to continue this adversarial posturing, I’m here as a passenger,” she replied, jerking a thumb over her shoulder at her crate.

“Man are you ever in the wrong place. We’re not a ferry service.”

“I’m aware of that. However, I’ve made special arrangements with the Captain.”

The yellowblood lowered his broadsheet. A pair of spectacles were perched at the end of his nose in front of mismatched, pupilless red and blue eyes. Vriska had somehow managed to wrangle a powerful psychic into her crew. He could probably destroy the whole ship with a sneeze. Delightful.

“Hah, oh wow. So you’re the ‘business partner’ she was running her yap about. Fuckssake, you really jumped into the hoofbeast crap with both feet didn’t you? If you want my advice, you should probably peace the hell out before she gets back and pretend this never happened.”

“Unfortunately I don’t have that luxury.”

“Believe me, I know that feeling,” he folded his paper, extending a hand. “Sollux. Navigator, quartermaster, and generally in charge of doing whatever the Captain is too lazy to do herself.”

“Terezi. The dope who’s getting taken for everything she’s worth,” she gave his hand a firm shake.

“Sorry for coming over all shitty, but, no offense, you kind of...”

“Yes, I know. I look like trouble.”

“Gimmie a sec and I’ll get your stuff stowed,” he rose from his seat and yelled up at the trolls on deck. “Gisigo! Yeah, you! Stop dicking around and swing a boom hook out here!”

“If it’s all the same to you, I’d prefer to keep an eye on it until I’ve squared a few things with the Captain.”

“Suit yourself. Belay that, Gisigo!” He crained his neck to one side to look up the wharf past her. “Aw shit, speak of the Handmaid.”

Sure enough, within a few moments the lingering scent of that dreadful anise liquor announced Vriska’s arrival, just ahead of the clomp of her boots against the planks of the wharf.

“I hope Captor’s not bothering you, Pyrope,” Vriska said as she drew level with them. “He’s an insubordinate little prick, but he eats star charts for breakfast so I can’t really afford to get rid of him.”

“Don’t mind her, Terezi. She’s just jealous because she couldn’t navigate her way out of a paper bag on a clear night with the proper heading tattooed on the inside of her eyelids.”

“Lucky for you. Otherwise I’d fill your pockets with grapeshot and drop you over the side of the ship.”

Terezi grinned. “Aw, are you two being this adorable just for my benefit?”

“What? Oh, ew, no way,” Sollux said. “I’m being totally platonic when I say that she could find a way to sail off the edge of a spherical planet.”

“Hey helmsman, can you can help me chart a course?” Vriska mimed unrolling a map. “We’re looking for this place called Sollux’s Sex Life. Maybe you’ve heard of it? Frozen little rock in the middle of the polar seas? Totally unsuited for habitation by neither troll nor beast?”

“Cool, we can swing by Captain Serket’s Interpersonal Relationships on the way. It’s a constantly erupting volcanic island where everything’s always on fire and the sulfur fumes could drop a bull musclebeast from three leagues.”

Vriska laughed. “Good one. Shouldn’t you be off counting grains of gunpowder or something?”

“Already tallied up the stocks. We’re short on everything, by the way. You’re out of your mind if you’re still planning on weighing anchor without resupplying.”

“No time,” Vriska threw an arm around Terezi’s shoulders. The tear in the sleeve of her coat had been stitched shut, an uncomfortable reminder of the events two nights previously. “My partner here just shanked a legislacerator in the Hag and I want to be well away before very serious people start showing up to ask very serious questions.”

“You can stop touching me any time you want,” Terezi said. Vriska removed her hand without comment.

“Fuck! They’re gonna blackball us for this! God damn it!” Sollux slapped his forehead. “This was a fucking prime location! What the fuck! Now we have to rely on fucking Vennah. Those assholes at their port authority always make me fill shit out in triplicate. Why do you have to ruin everything?”

“Fantastic news! Guess where we’re heading for resupply.”

“Oh my fucking God.”

“Maybe you should go start drawing up a manifest, eh? In triplicate?”

Sollux shoved his hands into his pockets and stalked away up the gangplank, muttering darkly to himself.

“You really have a way with people, Serket,” Terezi said. “I believe we can add ‘manages others through mental terrorism’ to your profile.”

“Ah, Captor knows he’s valued. He just can’t hardly get out of the recuperacoon in the evening if he doesn’t feel a little put upon. So, this is it huh?” She gave the crate a little kick. “Packed in there all snug and safe like a cluckbeast egg.”

“Yep. Should have heard him whining when he found out how he’d be traveling. It’s amazing he’s been able to keep quiet for this long; I swear he used to have to hold his breath to shut up.”

“Sounds like you’ve known this guy for a while.”

“No comment.”

Vriska cocked an eyebrow at her. “One of these nights, Pyrope, I’m going to pry some stories out of you.”

“You’re welcome to try.”

“I like a challenge. Anyway, more importantly, where’s my money?”

Terezi popped open her personal trunk, rummaged around inside for a moment, and pulled out a heavy leather satchel that jangled with every movement. She tossed the bag to Vriska and giggled as the seagrift stumbled slightly under its weight.

“There you go,” Terezi said. “Twenty thousand, mostly in gold aureglians. Don’t spend it all in one place.”

Vriska’s eyes sparkled with greed as she opened the satchel and gazed upon the bounty within.

“Only mostly?” She asked.

“There’s a few sterling tragans thrown in to make it a nice round number.”

“Whatever. Money is money.,” Vriska closed the satchel and slung it over her shoulder, “Advocata Pyrope, allow me to be the first to welcome you aboard the _Chelicerate Incarnadine_. Transport of choice for the discerning fugitive,” She turned to the trolls on the deck and, in a voice of command, bellowed “Boom hook! Now!”

A few seconds and a scramble of activity on deck later, a small crane swung out over the wharf and lowered a hook. Several trolls hustled down the gangplank, carrying ropes that they used to lash her trunk to the crate and secure them to the hook. A shout of “Heave!” came from somewhere on deck, the crate lofted swaying into the air and was swung over onto the ship.

“Care for the grand tour?” Vriska asked with an inviting sweep of her arm. “I’m afraid the promenade deck is closed indefinitely on account of the fact we ain’t got one, but aside from that I’m sure you’ll find the accommodations to your liking.”

* * *

 

Terezi wasn’t quite she what she was expecting, her knowledge of all things nautical being limited to what she had read in silly adventure books back when she was a wiggler. They started with a turn on the top deck, during which Vriska rattled off a bunch of trivia about the ship in the impenetrable technical language of the sea — topgallants and clews and spons’ls and fo’c’sles and who the hell knew what else. Terezi nodded and made appreciative noises and wondered in a distant sort of way if this is how she sounded to laytrolls when she started talking about case law and _mens rea_ and the like. Still she had to admit there was something kind of... charming almost about how Vriska really came alive and spoke about something as banal as the _Incarnadine_ ’s draught with the kind of fondness that someone else might describe their matesprit’s eyes. She clearly loved the ship, and Terezi found her passion oddly disarming.

They descended a flight of stairs into the ship’s lower decks. And here Terezi realized that one thing her adventure books had never really touched on was just how cramped everything was. Any given troll belowdecks had at most a couple square feet of personal space at any given time. Any meeting between two individuals going opposite directions created a small traffic jam, and God forbid one of them was carrying something cumbersome. Vriska walked backwards through the press, talking animatedly the whole time, and the crew gave way for her like ice floes parting before a breaker ship. The _Incarnadine_ had a maximum capacity of one-hundred and fifty. According to Vriska they were running considerably below that at the moment, given the speed with which they were having to depart Gerhae. Terezi couldn’t imagine how tight things would have gotten with a full compliment on board.

They paused in front of a door.

“Now, you ain’t technically part of the crew, so most of the ship’s charter doesn’t apply to you. But! There’s one thing that’s non-negotiable,” Vriska held up a finger to punctuate her words. “Through here’s the gun deck. There are no fucking open flames on the gun deck or near the magazine. I mean that. No fucking open flames on the gun deck or near the magazine. Hooded lanterns only. I catch you with so much as a lit match in here and, partner or not, I’ll have you flogged to within an inch of your life. Are we clear?”

“There are no fucking open flames on the gun deck or near the magazine,” Terezi repeated dutifully.

“Great!” Vriska threw the door open and the sulfurous stench of gunpowder that billowed out from beyond struck Terezi like a physical blow. The majority of the space was given over to the cannons — “long nines” Vriska called them — and their associated supplies and equipment. They squatted facing their sealed gunports with an air of anticipated violence. She led Terezi in a circuit of the deck, trailing her fingers in passing along the barrel of each of the twenty-four guns and naming them from memory in turn: _Defiler of Your Lusus_ , _Our Lady of Thunder_ , _A Wader’s Death_ , _The Handmaid Has Noticed You_ , _The Vast Expletive_...

Terezi stopped her. “What was that last one?”

“ _The Vast Expletive_? Why?” Vriska gave her a puzzled look.

“Who names these things?

“The crew, generally,”

“You have Sufferites in your crew?”

“Of course. Who can you think of that’s more likely to be desperate enough to sign on with a seagrift ship? Hell, my master gunner’s a leveller,” She stood on tip-toe to look down the length of the deck and whistled at someone. “Pellew! C’mere!”

An oliveblood with a frame like several kegs lashed together gingerly picked his way through the bodies and weaponry towards them. He ripped off a smart salute. “Aye, cap’n?”

“Pyrope, this is Wedzen Pellew, master gunner. If you’re gonna give only one troll on this ship respect, make it him. Pellew, this is Terezi Pyrope. She’s our bankroll; look grateful.”

Terezi went to shake hands and found hers being crushed in a grip like a vise. “An honor, ma’am,” he said, without a hint of guile.

“Why don’t you show Pyrope your marks? She’s one of your kind and is feeling a little lonesome.”

The master gunner hiked up one of his shirt sleeves and there, on his wrist beneath the powder burns, Terezi’s nose could pick out faint branding-scars in the shape of the Signless Sign.

“Don’t worry, ma’am,” he said with a sad little smile, “you’re among friends.”

“Captor mentioned we’re going to be running thin,” Vriska said, “we got enough materiel to put up a fight if it comes down to that?”

Pellew sucked on his teeth for a moment and rubbed his chin thoughtfully, stubble meeting calluses with a sandpapery noise. “Weelll, we can give good account of ourselves, if’n it should be needed. But I’d maybe not go looking for trouble in a terrible hurry right now.”

Vriska clapped the gunner on the shoulder. “You know me, Pellew. I don’t start fights, I just finish them. Get back to your duties.”

They passed through a door at the aft end of the gun deck, beyond which was a blessedly less jammed area given over to the magazine and miscellaneous storage. Then, down into the berths on the level beneath the gun deck where a crowd of off-duty crew were busy digging into plates of something that vaguely resembled saltgrub between rows of narrow, shallow soporbunks. She showed Terezi her quarters, a tiny chamber with a miniature recuperacoon and writing desk wedged together with barely enough room to stretch her arms between them. Terezi’s trunk had already been stowed against the wall opposite the recuperacoon.

“The VIP suite,” Vriska said.

“I’ve seen nicer cellblocks,” Terezi replied.

“Sorry, this is as good as it gets. Unless you’re looking to bunk with me. In which case, would it kill you to at least offer me dinner first?”

“I believe the stench of villainy and cheap booze clinging to you would keep me awake.”

The last stop on the tour was a large hatch opening into the darkness beneath their feet. A second, similar hatch was set into the ceiling above their heads. And above that one, Terezi imagined, was a third that opened onto the main deck.

“The hold,” Vriska said, “pretty boring unless you get off on crates and shit like—” A low, keening wail echoed from somewhere in the depths, interrupting her. “What the hell?”

“Is something wrong?”

“No, I always keep my ship stocked with moaning weirdos. It’s kind of my thing,” Vriska crept closer to the hatch, grabbed a lantern off a hook on the wall, and peered down into the gloom.

Sollux came pounding his way down the deck from behind them, shoving his way through the berths at a dead run and reaching them out of breath.

“Captain, God’s fangs, there you are,” he said between gasps. “Been looking all over the ship. Maryam’s having one of her moments. Threw a length of timber at my head.”

Vriska went rigid, her face uncertain. “What? It ain’t even been a perigee yet. What happened to...” she shot an askance look at Terezi. “What happened to her medicine?”

“Fouled by seawater, I guess after we sprung that leak off the Black Cliffs a few weeks back. Of course Maryam didn’t say anything,” he put on a prim, proper voice. “Would not want to be a bother, after all.”

Vriska thumped a fist against the bulkhead. “Great, like making sure she doesn’t end up climbing the walls ain’t a bother. Guess we’re doing this the hard way. Both of you, lets go.”

“What’s going on, Serket?” Terezi said.

“Team-building exercise. C’mon, it’ll be fun,” Vriska said as she descended through the hatch, lantern held high.

True to Vriska’s word, the hold was a storage fetishist’s dream. The illumination from her lantern revealed containers of every sort, holding everything conceivably necessary for the maintenance of the ship. Another wail emanated from somewhere out in the darkness.

The three of them crept forward, subconsciously huddling in close to the lantern. Up ahead a second, faint light was glimmering from behind a stack of barrels. The sound of heavy, ragged breathing interspersed with what could have been sobs reached Terezi’s ears. She was beginning to regret contracting with this ship of dangerous freaks.

Vriska held up a hand to stop them. “Alright, so, a plan would be good right about now,” she whispered, casting about in the lantern’s light for something. Her eye seized upon a small heap of belaying pins lying nearby, and she handed a couple off to Sollux and Terezi. She set the lantern on the deck and shrugged out of her coat, lay it across a crate and placed her bicorne on top. A stained bandage peeked out from under a tear in the linen of her shirt, marking where the neophyte had wounded her.

“Are you going in there?” Sollux waved a hand at her arm. “She’s gonna go mental when she catches a whiff of that.”

“That’s the plan, Captor,” Vriska gave him one of her smirks, but a distinct note of uncertainty showed through in her voice. It didn’t suit her in the least. “Gotta get her dosed up so she knocks this off. Ain’t no use to me if she’s sulking down here.”

“I thought you’d have learned something from the last time this happened.”

“I have. That’s why you guys have the pins. Give it a count of, I dunno, let’s say twenty, then come in and hit her over the head as hard as you can.”

“Wait!” Terezi hissed, “why are we hitting people with cudgels now? What the hell is going on?”

Vriska rounded on her, eyes narrowed. “Oh, gee, sorry Pyrope. Did I mention my ship’s surgeon is a rainbow drinker? Gosh, that must’ve slipped my mind. Because she is, and she’s very hungry right now on account of she didn’t want to be a pain in the ass by pointing out that her supply of blood got ruined. Ain’t got time to run down to our guy in the city to have him bleed some squealbeasts and then scare up enough ice to keep it fresh, so I guess I have to go solve everyone’s problems as usual. You’re going to hit her with cudgels so that I don’t fucking die.”

“You’re going to... oh my God, you are actually insane aren’t you?” Terezi put a hand to her forehead, feeling a migraine coming on. What the hell had she gotten herself into?

“I’m the captain of this ship. It’s my job to do the shit that no one else has the globes to do. Hey Captor, you feel like sticking your neck out, pun intended?”

“Hell no, Captain,” he replied with a shake of his head.

“There, you see Pyrope? Hah, of course you don’t,” she rolled up her sleeve and unwound the bandage. Her wound was healing, but still carried a wet pungeance. “I’m going in. When you speak of me, speak well.”

She stepped out of the lantern’s illumination, around the barrels. Terezi could hear her speaking levelly to someone. And then, the sound of wood splintering and that someone shouted, in a voice that bordered on an animal cry, “Ssstay back!”

A few more low, indistinct words from Vriska and she was cut off by a rush of motion. She hove back into view from behind the barrels, thrown against a stack of crates by a blindingly fast, iridescent figure. Vriska just barely managed a shout of “Easy! Easy, Maryam!” before the rainbow drinker yanked her head back by the hair and locked its mouth on her throat.

Terezi had never really gone in for shadowdropper books. They had always struck her as a bunch of pretentious assholes swanning around and complaining about how hard it was to be young and hot forever. Still, she had kind of osmosed the impression that being a victim of one was supposed to be a sensuous experience. This, however, was the least sensuous thing she had ever witnessed. Vriska fought back at first out of instinct but was quickly overcome by a sort of stricken torpor, teeth gritted and eyes wide, hand clasped around the side of her attacker’s face with the thumb frozen in a position to gouge at her eye. All the purple prose about heaving bosoms in the world couldn’t paper over the fact that she was pretty obviously not having a lot of fun.

“Is this actually going to work?” Terezi whispered.

“Uh, well, it’s one of her plans, sooo fifty-fifty shot?”

“Great. I’m absolutely brimming with confidence in the choices I’ve been making lately.”

“I did tell you to walk away while you had the chance. Right, that’s twenty,” Sollux hefted his belaying pin. “Let’s go.”

The two of them advanced on the rainbow drinker as quietly as possible, but unfortunately not quietly enough. As Sollux raised his club, her arm lashed out and caught him across the jaw with a crushing backhand blow that sent him toppling. The creatured wrenched itself loose from Vriska’s neck, letting the seagrift slide bonelessly to the deck, turned on Terezi with a smoothness that suggested every joint was on greased bearings and threw a punch that she almost didn’t have time to smell coming.

Almost. Old drills from her coursework in Applied Force and Apprehension of Suspects sparked to life deep in her memory, and she found herself automatically pivoting with the blow, like a door opening to admit it entrance. The shadowdropper’s fist grazed her in passing, but Terezi was now inside the creature’s arc of attack, close enough to form a picture of the person beneath the glow for the first time. To her surprise, it was a rather well-kempt, proper looking woman of about her age. The fastidiousness of her clothing, an immaculately cut blouse and skirt with delicate embroidery work picked out in jade, was offset by the cerulean smeared around her mouth and the expression of predatory anger contorting her face. But, still, Terezi thought as she stepped back to avoid a hand grasping for her, not someone you would pick out of a lineup as being a creature out of scary stories for wigglers.

Terezi feinted left and, as the rainbow drinker attempted to evade, stepped neatly forward to administer Maneuver #18 from Felbrief’s treatise on perp subdual: Cranial Drubbing for Purposes of Incapacitating Difficult Bastards.

The pin split down the middle as it impacted the rainbow drinker’s head, sending a shock down Terezi’s arm and dropping from her numbed fingers. It was like attempting to knock out a boulder. For one terrible instant she thought it hadn’t worked and was about to draw her sword when the rainbow drinker stopped short. Her head swiveled to take in the scene around her: Sollux slowly finding his way to his feet, bitching mightily about compound fractures and the general unfairness of life; Serket lolling on the deck, staring blankly at nothing with another open wound to add to the collection she’d been accumulating with disturbing eagerness in the two or so nights Terezi had known her.

“Oh,” she said in a detached tone. “Oh dear.”

“Hi,” Terezi said as she tried to shake some sensation back into her hand. “Feeling better?”

“Oh dear, this is all very awkward.”

“Pretty mortifying, yeah. Am I getting the deluxe show or is this all more or less business as usual for this ship?”

Maryam looked confused. “The deluxe—? No! No, this is... this is terrible. You must think I am a monster.”

“It’d be more than a little disingenuous to pretend otherwise,” Terezi sniffed and pointed to the corner of her mouth. “You got a bit of blue on you, by the way.”

A wave of horror washed over Maryam’s face. She pulled a handkerchief from her breast pocket and set to work dabbing at her mouth with it, making small embarrassed noises as it kept coming away dirtier and dirtier.

“God’s fangs, Kanaya, I keep forgetting how nasty your left hook is,” Sollux staggered over to them, rubbing his jaw. “This is Terezi, she’s hired us out. Terezi, this is Kanaya Maryam. She’s kind of the ship’s—”

“Seamstress!” Kanaya interjected, hiding her mouth behind her handkerchief. “I am not and never will be comfortable with being any kind of...mediculler.”

“Shit, just deal with it already will you? We’ve had barkbeast butchers as the surgeon before. At least you know how to sew someone up.”

“Yes, but, in absence of formal education...”

“Man if any of use were formally educated, you think we’d be on this ship?” He gave Terezi a long-suffering sigh. “She’s the surgeon, despite what she says.”

“Only until someone more suitable is found! That’s what I was promised!”

“It’s been almost a sweep. I don’t think we’re finding anyone more suitable.”

“Fuck!” Vriska shouted, suddenly sitting bolt upright. “Fuuuuuuu-UCK!” Her wild stare wandered for a moment before settling on Terezi. “What the fuck!”

“Oh, good, you’re not dead. That would have been tragic,” Terezi said with a laugh.

Vriska swallowed hard, fighting to compose herself. “That concludes the tour, I guess. Gift shopblock to your right, commemorative plates and all that kind of kitschy crap.”

“Captain, please, I am so, so—” Kanaya started before being cut off by a wave of Vriska’s hand.

“Stow it, alright? Is someone gonna help me up or what?”

Terezi obliged, grinning broadly. “I must say, Serket, if I’d known our partnership was going to involve so much hauling your ass off the floor, I’d have invested in a back brace.”

“I’m a little out of it to engage in cutting repartee, Pyrope, so lemme just say that you’re a snippy little bitch. Captor, are we ready to blow this frozen confection stand or what? Want to get moving before something else goes wrong.”

“Ready as we’ll ever be. Probably won’t be reduced to eating rats if we’re just heading to Vennah, anyway. Of course, if we get becalmed we’re totally boned broadside up the bulge, but I’m sure you’re prepared to play it fast and loose with our survival.”

Vriska was only half paying attention, being mostly focused on struggling back into her coat and fighting off Kanaya’s attempts to help her. “Good, sounds good. A couple weeks or so and — Goddamnit it Maryam, knock it off.”

“Your sleeve is inside-out, you obstinate... here, let me... There, much better,” Kanaya said, giving Vriska an appraising once-over. “Though once again I must say that if you would only let me take it in around the waist and add a belt, it would suit you—”

“It’s not a fashion statement, Maryam.”

“Statement or not, it speaks volumes.”

* * *

 

The _Incarnadine_ left port without further incident. A small part of Terezi was amazed, as the town slipped away behind the horizon, that she had not yet been smote by some higher power for her transgressions. Here she was, the most despised of all living creatures, a turncoat, and yet she was being allowed to go her merry way without even so much as a chastising glance from the heavens.

God must truly have been dead.

She put the thought aside, filing it away for later self-recrimination. There were more important things to attend to, such as decanting Vantas from his crate and bringing him up to speed. Serket had insisted on keeping him boxed until they were well away from shore, and truth be told Terezi was beginning to enjoy the absence of his interminable bitching. Still, all good things must come to an end.

“You wanna do the honors?” Vriska asked, holding a prybar out for Terezi.

“Might as well,” Terezi said. “You’ll want to stand back; he bites when he’s upset. Which is more or less all the time.”

It was the work of a few moments to rip the nails in the side of the crate free. A cascade of hay packing tumbled out, carrying with it a fuming mad Karkat Vantas. Coughing and sputtering in the fresh air, he looked up at Terezi reproachfully.

“Terezi, I’m really sorry,” he said.

“For what?” she replied.

“For inadvertently giving you the idea that I can BREATHE FUCKING STRAW!” He held up a fistful of the stuff to illustrate his point. “Fuck! I thought I was going to die in there!”

“Oh, quit whining you big wiggler. It got you out of the Maze, didn’t it?”

“You could have warned me that your cunning plan involved shoving me headfirst into a box! I was upside down for the first night and a half! Where the hell am I?”

“You,” Vriska stepped forward, “are aboard the _Chelicerate Incarnadine_ , captained by none other than myself — Vriska Serket.” She swept her hat off and bowed low.

Karkat stared at her. “Y’know, the way you just said that makes me think it’s supposed to be, like, significant or something? But, funny thing, I have no fucking clue who you are.”

Vriska looked taken aback. “Seriously? Where the hell have you been?”

“IN FUCKING PRISON!” Karkat shrieked, “which, incidently, Terezi, I’m starting to think I was being a little bit unreasonable about. I got one square meal a night, whether I needed it or not, hot and cold running beatings, all the rats I could fend off with a stick, and most importantly they never stuck me in a crate for two weeks!”

“Is he always like this?” Vriska hissed to Terezi out the side of her mouth.

“You have no idea,” Terezi said, pinching the bridge of her nose.

“He can sleep in the hold, I think.”

“What are you two whispering about?” Karkat asked, brushing hay from his heavy hooded cloak and hair.

“About how you’re going to travel with the rest of the useless ballast.” Terezi said, grinning.

“Oh, ballast. Okay. I’m cargo again. Obviously at some point I became the romantic interest in a pulpy novella who just gets schlepped around for the whole story. Fucking amazing. Terezi, serious question — what am I doing here?”

“You’re being rescued.”

“Rescued? Since when do you give a shit? Last I talked to you, you were all on board with your bugwhacked kill-crazy legalese.”

“Karkat, do you really think I’d leave you to rot in that hole?”

“Yes,” he said without hesitation.

“Well...” Terezi paused, caught off-guard, “you’re wrong.”

“As cute as this little tiff is,” Vriska interjected, “I was kind of, sort of, maaaaaaaaybe wondering if you were ever going to tell me where we were taking this guy? Just, y’know, offhand.”

“A fair question,” Terezi said, rapping her cane against the deck as a form of punctuation, grateful for the distraction. “Can’t make much progress if the Captain doesn’t have a heading, I suppose. I’ll need access to your sea charts and your navigator, though. I only have a set of coordinates to go off.”

* * *

 

Karkat’s outraged protests about his savior not knowing where she was taking him aside, the process of isolating their destination was a matter of a few minutes work by Sollux.

“The Ammala Strand,” he said, indicating the cluster of isles in the dim lamp-light of the chart room. “Bunch of uninhabited islands in the disputed zone between the Empire and the Grand Principalities. Claimed by both, but neither the Tsaritsa nor the Condesce wants to start another shooting war over some barren rocks.

“Lots of natural, unmonitored harbors. A smuggler’s paradise. Your contact knows how to pick a spot,” Vriska said. She traced a route along the map with a finger. “Not too bad. Three weeks out of Vennah to the Iron Horn, pass through there and its another three to the Strand. We can have you sitting pretty before next perigee.”

Terezi shivered. “I’d prefer to avoid the Horn. The place crawls with clergy.”

“That’ll double our travel time,” Sollux said. “Have to make a transit of the southern passage, wait for the tide to get low enough to pass the Gnashing Rocks. The Horn’s the only quick way through, assuming the chain across the straights is down.”

“Don’t tell me you’re afraid of a few subjugglators,” Vriska said.

“You would be too if you’d worked with them like I have,” Terezi said.

“I’m with Terezi. Can we not go exposing me to fucked up psycho clowns any more than is strictly necessary? Those guys can smell me from a mile distant,” Karkat said.

Vriska shrugged theatrically. “Fine, but that means a longer trip that I’m sure as hell not paying for out of pocket.”

“I’m good for it,” Terezi said.

“You sure? I haven’t even totted up the surcharge for getting me involved in political shit.”

“Who said it was political, Serket?”

“Well, I’m just an ignorant sellsword thug who can only conceptualize things in terms of how much I’m paid, but given that we’re meeting someone in disputed turf to hand off a high profile prisoner as part of an effort that surely must’ve required some big budget intelligence services, it looks an awful lot to me like you’re selling your boy off to the Principalities.”

An intake of breath, furious stomping footsteps, a door slamming shut. Karkat had left the room.

“Oh, thank you so much,” Terezi hissed.

“You seem to have screwed up,” Vriska replied. “Maybe you should go see to that.”

“The night I take advice from a seagrift—”

“Seagrift or not, I ain’t the one who pimps her alleged friends out to foreign powers while pretending I’m doing them a favor, honey.”

Terezi’s sword flashed in the lamplight as she brought it to rest across Vriska’s shoulder, blade scarcely and inch from her neck. Vriska, for her part, was already pressing the muzzle of one of her pistols against Terezi’s stomach.

“And here I was worried you’d be boring,” Vriska said, smirking in that way of hers.

“Oh my fucking God.” Sollux groaned, face in his hands.

“You’re out of line, Serket,” Terezi said.

“I’m sorry, did I strike a nerve again? Sure you ain’t got something to tell me?”

Terezi’s desire to draw her blade across the seagrift’s throat, to spill her vile blood all over the floor, was nearly overpowering. She’d take being gutshot as fair payment to wipe that smile off Vriska’s face once and for all.

“You’re trying to provoke me, aren’t you?” she said, forcing her rage down with a titanic effort. The last thing she should be doing, she thought, is letting the awful bitch get under her skin.

“Maybe,” Vriska replied, flippant as ever.

Terezi withdrew her sword from its resting place and slid it back into its cane-sheath. “This is going to be a very long trip if you insist on doing that.”

Vriska reciprocated by slipping her gun back into her coat. “Go deal with your boyfriend, Pyrope. Before he decides to swim back to shore in a fit of pique.”

* * *

 

At first, Terezi’s attempt to “deal” with the situation proved unproductive. Karkat fumed and spat and accused her of every slanderous thing he could think of — that she was a backstabber, that she was out of her mind, that she would sell her own dear, departed lusus up the river for shits and giggles. And she stood there and soaked it up. She knew from experience that arguing with him would only encourage him. On a normal night, she would have been all too eager to wind him up further just so see how far he’d go before collapsing. But tonight she didn’t have the emotional fortitude to prolong the stupid spat. It was far easier to let him tantrum himself out.

It took around fifteen solid minutes.

“Are you finshed?” she asked when it looked like he’d reached a good stopping place.

“No!” he shouted. His mouth hung open for a moment as he searched for something to yell about that he hadn’t already covered in detail. “Yes,” he said, sagging against the ship’s railing as he realized that he was well and truly tapped out. “I... Terezi, when was the last time you talked to me?”

“I don’t know, three sweeps? Three and half? It’s kind of hard for a legislacerator to find a good excuse to meet with a wanted troll in a capacity that doesn’t end with one of them dead.”

“Okay, fine, fair enough. But, it’s just... I don’t hear from you for ages and then suddenly you burst into my cell, say ‘don’t worry, I have a plan,’ and shove me in a crate. And now I find out I’m being sent to the icy-assed end of the fucking planet to freeze my globes off in exile or something.”

“It isn’t exile, Karkat. You’re not safe in the Empire. There are people in the Principalities who will make sure you...”

“Fuck’s SAKE Terezi, you don’t get it! Look, thank you for saving my worthless ass from the Maze and all that, but would it have killed you to maybe, like, _run this plan past me first_?”

Terezi rubbed the bridge of her nose; the spot was getting a little raw after the events of the past night. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”

Karkat looked stunned. “Wait, what? I’m right? Did you actually just say that? Are you feeling okay?”

“Karkat—”

“You’ve never admitted I’m right about anything ever. Holy shit, this is epochal.”

“God dammit Karkat, shut up for a second will you?” She drew a deep breath; there was a gnawing pain in her chest, something fluttering in her guts. “I didn’t have a plan, short of getting you to the Principalities. Everything up to now has been spur-of-the-moment. If I didn’t tell you anything, it’s because I didn’t know what was coming next beyond 'get ship and go'.”

She’d cut herself loose from her moorings on an impulse. All her bridges had been burned on a whim. By the grace of some perverse god, she’d made it this far. But there was no telling whether her next step would find her without anything under her feet. Admitting it, both aloud and to herself, hurt.

“Oh,” Karkat said.

“Huh,” he added a little later.

They leaned, side-by-side, over the railing for a while — Karkat staring at the horizon and Terezi just absorbing the smell and taste of the oceanscape. It was wide and dull and gray, to the best of her ability to tell.

“Could you at least have found a less shitty captain?” Karkat asked.

“As much as it pains me to say, no. Her shittiness is integral to the effort, I’m afraid.”

Another long silence passed between the two of them before Karkat spoke again.

“Why?” he said.

“Why what?”

“Why stick your neck out for me all of a sudden?”

The sound of a rope snapping taut. Legs kicking feebly at nothing. The smell of death heavy in the air.

“It’s a long story,” she said.

The answer seemed to satisfy him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Open” vs “Closed” Harborage -
> 
> Ports in the Empire are typically divided by sailors into these categories. The vast majority are “closed”, their customsblocks and port authorities being directly administered by the Imperial Office of Assize and the Cruelest Bar. As such, they tend to be less than attractive to smugglers, seagrifts, and merchants who prefer their margins generous. “Open” ports, such as Gerhae and Vennah, are granted considerable independence in regulating who and/or what is allowed to pass through. The reasons for this are complicated, boring, and not really worth delving into beyond saying that they are rooted in the Empire’s distant feudal past, when patron-client relations and informal arrangements of privilege were more important than the edicts of the crown. Her Imperious Condescension, being a fairly incurious person more concerned with territorial expansion and suppression of rebellion, tends to overlook the inefficiency and anachronism of the situation. Because man who even reely gives a fuck.


	3. Escalation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Sounds like big trouble. You're going to need plenty of legal advice before this thing is over. As your attorney, I advise you to rent a very fast car with no top... And we're going to have to arm ourselves, to the teeth.”  
> \- Dr. Gonzo, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

Vennah _reeked_. Of fish guts, incontinent animals and tanneries. Of trolls in close quarters and sickness and criminality and scheming. The town itself was all brown, beige and soot. Ugly to its bones. The only point of interest, too far distant for Terezi to percieve without having it described for her, was a fort clinging to one of the cliffs at the mouth of the harbor. 

“God, I hate this place already,” Terezi said, pulling her collar high and doing her best to filter a picture of her surroundings from the miasma assailing her senses. “How long are we going to be stuck here?”

“Ten nights, maybe fifteen. Depends on a lot of stuff,” Vriska said. They were waiting at the foot of the gangplank for the port authority to turn up. She cocked an eyebrow at Terezi’s exasperated snort. “You don’t have to leave the ship, y’know. Might even be safer if you stayed aboard.” 

“If I didn’t get off that tub I was going to go insane.”

“Suit yourself. Can’t say the smell ever improves, though.”

When the port authority inspector finally did arrive, along with a small troop of local militia, he brought trouble with him. He leafed through the packet of documents Sollux had prepared, sneered at a few pages here and there, outright laughed at others. It was around when he started casually tossing pages into the water below the dock as he finished reading them that Terezi pulled Vriska aside.

“Is this normal?” she whispered. 

“Usually they barely look at the thing. Sollux fucked up.”

“It’s a poor craftstroll that blames her tools.” 

“Not that Captor ain’t a tool, but what’s that supposed to mean?”

The inspector waved Vriska over. “What’s this?” he said, holding out one of the papers for her.

“That would be an endorsement from the Hive Sierel Mercantile Consortium saying I’ve got got every right to be here and that you should probably lay off,” she replied.

“Guess you haven’t heard, then. Hive Sierel’s defunct. Their manorblock burned to the ground last perigee.”

“Oh no. That’s a real pisser. Foul play?”

“Well considering someone parked a scuttlewagon in front of the main gates to keep them from opening and posted mercenaries on the estate walls to gun down anyone trying to escape, we aren’t ruling it out.”

“So, this means...”

“It means, Captain Serket, that your endorsement doesn’t have sweet fuck all for weight behind it. It means that you haven’t got anyone guaranteeing your good behavior. And it means I’m going to toss your degenerate ass off my god damned dock unless you come up with a real compelling reason for me not to in the next five seconds.”

As if to punctuate the inspector’s statement, the militiatrolls thumbed back the hammers on their muskets in unison. Vriska’s hand twitched and a telepathic pulse skittered across Terezi’s pan. All signs pointed to Vriska using her five seconds to do something very, very stupid indeed.

It was time for cooler heads to prevail.

“Hi, hello. Good evening. I assume our papers are not in order?” she said, elbowing her way past Vriska and fixing the inspector with a saccharine smile.

“Who the hell are you?”

“Captain Serket’s legal counsel. I’d offer you my card, but I’m afraid I’m all out.”

The inspector scoffed. “A seagrift with a lawyer. Okay, I’ll bite. You gotta name?”

“Latula,” Terezi said, pulling one out of thin air.

“Latula what?”

“Latula... ah...”

“Rypope,” Vriska interjected.

“Latula Rypope?” the inspector’s eyes narrowed.

“Will you excuse us for a moment?” Terezi said, grabbing Vriska by the arm and dragging her a ways up the dock. “‘Rypope?’ Are you a complete idiot?” 

“Oh like ‘Latula’ is any better. What is that, a flower?”

“Is something wrong, ladies?” the inspector called after them.

“No! Attorney-client confidentiality! Legal advice taking place!” she pulled Vriska into a huddle. “Do me a favor and take a minute out of your life to shut the hell up.”

“God’s fangs, can I please just kill them?”

“Absolutely not! You can’t go murdering bureaucrats for being diffident.”

“Fine, have it your way. But when he throws me into the harbor, I’m pullin’ you down with me.”

Terezi sauntered back to the inspector, doing her best to affect nonchalance. “Do you mind if I have a look at that?” she asked, indicating the endorsement. The inspector handed it over and recoiled slightly as she gave it a long, slow lick.

It was utter garbage. A bunch of florid, archaic gibberish with no basis in any formal contract law she could think of, based on the grand total of one half semester she’d spend studying the field. Obviously the work of some upjumped merchant with too much money and too little sense. If she was going to talk her way out of this, a little improvisation would be needed.

Throwing caution to the wind, Terezi launched into the biggest pile of sophistry she’d ever shoveled together in her entire life. Great reams of precedent were mangled. Case law was contorted in impossible ways. Trollatin terms were deployed with abandon. Any legislacerator worth their stripes would have cut her throat after the first minute, summary execution for Criminal Wastage of Court Time. But the inspector just went glassy-eyed and nodded, helpless before her assault. 

“... and consequently, as per _ceteris paribus ex justica mortis et ignie ferroque_ , I believe you will find that the Commonblood Council of the town is responsible for maintaining all contracts made on its behalf regardless of the solvence or extance of the parties concluding them on its behalf.”

“I see,” the inspector said, looking slightly dazed.

“Tell me, sir, are you prepared to go to court?” Terezi asked. Her smile was no longer saccharine.

“Wait, wh—” 

“I don’t mean to alarm you, but breach of contract is a very serious thing. You could be looking at fines of well in excess of several thousand caegars for financial and emotional damages. And this doesn’t even begin to address any corporal punishments assessed,” she slid her glasses down her nose and tried to suppress a giggle as the inspector flinched.

“Corporal...” he stammered.

“How many fingers do you believe you could lose before you were rendered unable to perform your duties?”

Sollux would comment later that he’d never before seen a port authority trip over itself to approve the ship so quickly.

* * *

 

It didn’t take long for Terezi to determine that ten or fifteen nights in Vennah would be ten or fifteen too many. She had vague memories of her instructors mentioning the place as a strict no-go zone for agents of the courtblock. Any legislacerator going in would probably come out in installments. But even if that hadn’t been the case she would have cheerfully given it a wide berth. It was both far larger and far denser than Gerhae, its buildings jammed together haphazardly and its streets little more than narrow, gloomy paths. While the _Incarnadine_ had been cramped, at least aboard she was never at risk of being run down by a merchant’s speeding scuttlewagon. And on the topic of merchants, God’s fangs and fists and fucking feet were there ever too many of them. Overblown, overdressed, with gaudy badges and sashes displaying their consortiums’ sigils, swanning through the boulevards with their hive guard retinues and adding their own foul stench of stupid arrogance and greed to the town’s bouquet.

More than once she entertained fantasies, full of flame and wrath, of what she could have done to the place had her lusus survived into adulthood. She shared these thoughts with Karkat one evening, during her nightly check-in with him in the _Incarnadine_ ’s hold.

“Welcome to my world,” he said with a sharp, humorless bark of a laugh. “Quick tip: as much as you may want to, don’t try to swallow your own flavor-flap and choke yourself to death out of spite. It never works.”

As if to pile irritation atop irritation, Vriska seemed entirely unfazed by the town. In fact, she was nearly as much in her element as she was aboard her ship. She spent most of her time out and about on errands, returning to the innblock that had been selected as their headquarters with larcenous stories on her lips. The rest of her schedule seemed to consist of getting hammered in one tavernblock or another, which usually precipitated a fight, which then usually required Kanaya to come around to her room afterwards with a roll of bandages and a needle and thread.

“That woman,” Kanaya said to Terezi after one of these incidents as the two of them warmed themselves by the fire, “I swear, sometimes it is all I can do to not strangle her.”

“If you do, let me know,” Terezi said, “so I can watch.” 

“You will be the first to hear, excepting maybe Sollux.”

Terezi laughed. “You know what’s really funny? I initially thought you two were an item. Very cute, very pale.” 

“Good God, no,” Kanaya suppressed a shudder. “Maybe once I would have been. But, well, suffice to say, the Captain excels at poisoning relationships.” 

“So why are you still here? You don’t seem to want to be.” 

“Unfortunately, I owe her my life. And while I do not believe she would try to stop me from leaving...”

Kanaya paused, considering the fire for a time. “I was to be an attendant of the Mother Grub, like all the other members of my caste. I was traveling with a number of other jade bloods, several of them sharing my... condition.”

“Other shadowdroppers?” Terezi said. 

“Yes. We were on the final leg of the journey, going by ship, when we were attacked by slavers and taken captive. When they discovered our nature, myself and the others I mean, old fears took hold. They started throwing us overboard, bound up in sail cloth and weighed down with cannon balls.”

“Kanaya, I saw you toss Serket around like a rag doll. You expect me to believe that a pack of things like you would just sit back and let this happen?”

“We were young and frightened and had not come to grips with our own abilities,” Kanaya touched the side of her head, as though the memories caused her pain. “I was the last one. They were making ready to... dispose of me, but then Captain Serket’s ship hit them and I was, after a fashion, saved.”

“Wow, close one.”

“As I said, while I could leave if I wanted, somehow it doesn’t feel right. So I study the journals and notes of my predecessors, the proper medicullers, and try to learn this trade that has been foisted upon me. Maybe some night I can feel right in leaving, but not right now.” 

A muffled _thud_ came from somewhere upstairs, followed by the sound of objects crashing to the floor and Vriska swearing. The door to her room creaked open and her drunken whine drifted down to the common room: “Maryaaaaaaaam.” 

Kanaya frowned deeply. “Yes, Captain?” she called. 

“‘m kinda... bleedin’... again.” 

“Oh for—; did you tear the sutures?” 

“‘es.”

“I will be right up,” she rose from her seat, “honestly, I am beginning to think she does this for attention.” Before departing, she turned back to Terezi and said, her face suddenly very sad, “May I offer you some advice?”

“Lay it on me.”

“Please watch yourself around her.”

“Oh, I do. But I sincerely doubt she could take me in a fight.”

“I am not referring to physical harm.”

“Then what _are_  you talking about? 

Kanaya hesitated, then sighed. “Never mind. Forget I said anything.”

* * *

 

The sea breeze down by the docks district helped chase away Vennah’s smell, if only a little. Here the streets were less claustrophobic, the crowds more given over to petty traders and craftstrolls. Terezi took to spending most of her time there, wandering through the stalls and wharfs. She frequently ran into Sollux as he handled the _Incarnadine_ ’s resupply. Most of the time he was too busy to humor her, but occasionally, between jobs or when he just felt like slacking off, she watched him play other members of the crew at a strange board game with pieces shaped like hoofbeasts and crowns.

“Shatranj,” he grunted by way of explanation, waiting for Gunner Pellew’s next move.

“And in what den of feckless depravity did you lot find this diversion?” she replied.

“Far to the west, ma’am,” Pellew said as he slid one of the smaller pieces forward, “where they worship heathen idols and their empress calls herself the Shahbanu, the Queen of Queens.”

She’d gotten a decent grasp of the rules by the end of the third night. On the fifth night she challenged Sollux to a game.

“Bullshit,” he said as she captured his trumpetgoliath, putting his empress under pressure. “How are you already so good at this?”

“I’m just a natural, I guess. Mate in five.”

“Bullshit!” he added as she swept up his subjugglators one after the other.

“Your cavalreaper is next. Mate in three.”

Further _bullshits_ followed as his cavalreaper fell into a trap, his consort perished ignominiously, and finally as his empress was run to ground.

“I tire of these wigglertown frolics,” Terezi said, leaning her chin on her cane and grinning at him. “As victor, I demand recompense.”

“What, are you gonna threaten to take my fingers now too?

“No. I want information. You obviously despise the Captain in the most platonic way. I want to know why you’re still here.”

“You’re a fucking freak, you know that right?”

“Immaterial! If I’m a freak then I’m in good company with trolls such as yourself, Captor,” she rapped her cane against the dock. “The witness is ordered to deliver his testimony or face the consequences.”

 “God! Fine! It’s not even that interesting! I was an astronomer for the royal court, then they fired me and put me on a ship to go get made into a meat-sextant for the admiralty, then Captain Bitchsticks blew the ship to hell and pulled me out of the wreckage! There, boom, done, end of story, no moral!”

“And why were you fired?”

“Because the heir-consort caught me snogging the heiress! Anything else you want to know?”

Terezi goggled at him. “You’re kidding.”

“No!”

“Feferi Peixes.” 

“Yes!” 

“You.”

“Is it really that hard to believe? I’m attractive as _fuck_!”

“With a sparkling personality like yours it’s a wonder anyone can resist your charms. Why, I’m even starting to get a little hot and bothered now. Lisp for me, beautiful.” 

“Get bent.”

“You haven’t answered my question, though. Why are you still here? Do you feel indebted to the Captain?”

“Why the hell would I? I’ve paid her back like a hundred times over by now.”

“Then spill, Captor. What’s keeping you on her ship?” 

He leaned back, tapping his overlarge teeth with a finger. “The pay’s pretty good, I guess. And finding a new job would be this whole big thing. So, hey, it’s a living right?”

“Is that it?”

“Were you expecting something else?”

“Kind of.” 

“Sorry to disappoint—” he looked up sharply, eyes fixed on something behind Terezi. “Hey! Gisigo! I saw that! That’s a hundred caegars worth of gunpowder you stupid asshole! No, don’t put it back; it’s leaking everywhere!”

“Back to work?” Terezi said.

“Yeah, looks like it. Hey, word of advice: you’re weirdly good, but if the Captain offers to play? Don’t. She cheats.”

* * *

 

On the tenth day, Terezi was awoken from troubled dreams by the ringing of steel and the crack of gunfire. Two of the mercantile hives were settling one of their petty vendettas in the street under her window in the pale dark season light. The militia was nowhere to be smelled. No doubt they were cowering in their barracks, too frightened or too corrupt to do their jobs. It infuriated her, and her umbrage kept her awake until nightfall.

Seeing that there was no point in lying around, she hauled herself out of the rickety innblock recuperacoon, washed herself to the best of her abilities from a basin of tepid water in what passed for her ablution chamber, and pulled on her clothes. She no longer looked like a screw, at least. Kanaya had seen to that, providing her with clothing that could charitably be described as “lamely anonymous.”

“That is the point,” Kanaya had said, “the less you stand out, the better.” 

“But they’re _boring_ ,” Terezi replied.

“I admit, I wish I could make them a little more interesting. Unfortunately, elegance would be counterproductive, I fear.”

She was grateful for the coat, at least — a thick, double-breasted ship’s coat that came down do her mid thigh with a weatherproofed shoulder cloak. Her old oilskin had vanished at some point during the fight in Gerhae, and she quickly learned that warmth was very hard to come by on the _Incarnadine_ during the frequent dark season rains.

Once dressed, Terezi slouched down to the innblock’s common room in dismal spirits. Almost immediately, she ran into the last thing she wanted to — a chipper Vriska Serket.

“Hey Pyrope, get a whiff of this!” she said, shoving a broadsheet at Terezi’s face.

“Great, the heir-consort gave a speech,” Terezi said after a grudging sniff. “Big deal, he does that twice a perigee.” 

“No, dumbass. At the bottom.” 

There, at the bottom of the page, next to an advertisement for some medicinal tonic whose primary ingredient appeared to be soporwine, was a crude picture of her face beneath the heading “WANTED, FOR HIGH CRIMES AGAINST THE CROWN AND ECCSLEAZIARCHY.”

The broadsheet slipped from her hand. “Oh God...” she muttered.

“Yeah, I know, it’s a shitty mugshot. They’ll get better, though. Hah, you should see my first wanted poster. They got my horns wrong and—”

“Shut up! Shut the fuck up!” Terezi yelled. The gnawing sensation that had been plaguing her ever since the neophyte’s death in the Hag exploded through her chest with new ferocity. She wasn’t sure if her heart was about to burst out of her chest or stop beating altogether.

Vriska took a step back. “What, is this a surprise to you? What did you think was going to happen?”

“I don’t know!” she said. She was starting to hyperventilate. “I don’t know. I don’t know.”

“Get a grip, Pyrope. You’re freaking out.” Vriska scanned the room, her hand straying towards the inside of her coat as though expecting a pack of legislacerators to come running at the sound of Terezi’s voice.

Terezi shoved past her, hurrying out the door into the street. Vriska was calling after her now, “Pyrope, wait! Don’t do something stupid, okay? It’s not that big a deal! Really!” Terezi slipped into the ubiquitous Vennah crowd. Vriska tried to follow her, but lacking Terezi’s smaller frame she found herself getting slowed by the foot traffic.

How long she wandered the alleys and back ways of the city, she couldn’t say. Random turns here and there put the commotion of the main drag behind her. All the while, her thinkpan did its level best to destroy itself.

_You knew this would happen. It could only ever be like this. And now, they will find you._

_They will find you and kill Karkat and take you away. They will hand you over to the clowns to have their fun, and then they will march your half-dead, broken husk out onto that gallows in front of the Upper Courtblock and they will leave you there to hang until the gorecrows have picked your bones clean._

_They will find you._

_They will find you._

Lost in her misery as she was, she nearly cried out in surprise when she found the bodies. They hung from the branches of a tree in a courtyard surrounded on three sides by decrepit tenement hivestems, twisting gently in the stagnant air. After determining that this was real and not some vision conjured to taunt her, she observed that each of the three bodies had a placard on its chest displaying their crimes: 

INSOLENCE

THEFT 

HERESY

Seized by some manic impulse, she hauled herself into the tree and ran her fingers over the knots around their necks. Sickness clenched her stomach. The customs of the Cruelest Bar recommended a very particular method of tying nooses in order to snap the neck of the accused and keep them from making an ungodly racket in their final moments. These nooses, however, had been tied by an amateur. Combined with what could only have been a drop of but a few feet, produced by kicking a chair out from under them perhaps, it was obvious that these trolls had been strangled to death slowly. 

She cut them down one by one; even being left to rot in the street would have been preferable to this ghastly display. She dropped out of the tree, landing silently. Best to be far away before the perpetrators of this miscarriage found her. 

She was about to slip away, back whence she had come, when a shadow detatched itself from the lampless gloom between the tenements. Then another. Then another. Then two more. As they moved into the courtyard, Terezi could make out the gaudy sashes of some consortium or another on their chests, as well as a collection of well-used weapons in their hands.

“‘Allo there, miss,” their leader, a deeply scarred female indigo, said. “D’ye disapprove of our decorations?”

“You did this,” Terezi replied, voice flat. 

“Right y’are, miss. Hive Volbek don’t like havin’ their streets clogged wi’ filth. Gotta do a bit o’ cleanin’ every now an’ then. And we can’t help but notice ye gone and strewn that mess all over Volbek’s streets again.”

The other consortium thugs were fanning out around the two of them now. Terezi was surrounded.

“Your methods are shabby — not proper procedure at all,” Terezi said, sliding her sword a ways out of its cane-sheath with her thumb, “perhaps I could demonstrate some best practices for you?” 

* * *

 

They died like animals. The indigo gurgled her last with a hand clutching her throat where Terezi’s blade had slashed it out. Alone, Terezi sunk to her knees, sword clattering on the cobbles next to her. She doubled over, breathing hard, trying not to vomit. She stayed like that for what could have been minutes or hours until a light rain blew in from somewhere off the ocean and began to wash the blood from the streets. She unfolded, craning her head back to stare heavenward with blind eyes. Water rolled down her face, mixing with tears.

“God's fucking fangs, Pyrope,” Vriska said, almost appearing from nowhere. Terezi hadn’t even heard her approach. The seagrift looked around the courtyard with an air of something not unlike approval. “Leave you alone for a few minutes and you go and start the party without me.” She walked around to Terezi’s front to study her face. “You okay?” 

Terezi’s mouth worked noiselessly for a moment until she found her voice. “I’m pretty far from okay right now, Serket,” she said.

“Well at least you ain’t dead.” Vriska started moving from body to body, checking for signs of life and rifling their pockets. She took something from the indigo, whistled softly, and tucked it away inside her coat.

“Alright, time to go. Stir your stumps,” she said, looting completed.

“Go away,” Terezi replied.

“So you just gonna sit there until the hive guard show up? You gonna try and do some vigilante shit on trolls wearing cuirasses and swinging halberds? Cuz, I mean, if you are, lemme go and get some popgrubs first.”

“Go away,” Terezi repeated.

Vriska sighed a long-suffering sigh and rolled her eyes. “Fine. Fine. I see how it is. Captain Serket to the rescue again.” She slid her hands under Terezi’s armpits and heaved her to her feet. “C’mon, up. Uuuuuuuup. Here’s your cane. Now turn around.” 

“Why?” 

“So I can see if they stuck you anywhere.” 

“I’m fine, don’t touch me.”

Vriska put her hands on Terezi’s shoulders and looked her straight in the eye, “I get it, you’re riding some pretty serious lightning right now. Believe me, I know the feeling. But I don’t want you dropping dead on me in half an hour because you didn’t notice they’d cut an artery.” 

Terezi stood numbly and let Vriska give her a looking-over. “Damn,” Vriska muttered, impressed, “they didn’t even lay a blade on you.” Her head jerked up at the sound of shouting from a few streets over. “Time to make ourselves scarce.”

* * *

 

The glass sitting on the table in front of Terezi didn’t smell like anything. That worried her; at least she’d known what she was getting into with that dreadful anise stuff.

“Drink,” Vriska said. They were back at the innblock, in Terezi’s room. The return trip had been a touch harrowing — Hive Volbek was out in force.

“What is it?” Terezi asked.

“Local specialty. Good stuff, I promise.”

“I don’t want it.”

“Pyrope, you’re shaking like a damn leaf. If you don’t settle down, you’re gonna pull something in your pan and turn yourself simple.”

“Is this some kind of clumsy pale overture?”

“Don’t flatter yourself.”

The liquor was clean and sweet. Terezi supposed it made her feel a little better. Not much, but a little.

“You shouldn’t beat yourself up about this,” Vriska said, “they were scum.” The way she was staring was starting to seriously bother Terezi.

“Well, if anyone knows scum,” Terezi refilled her own glass and knocked it back in one go, “it would be you, Serket.”

“Okay, I guess I deserve that. Here,” she set something on the table in front of Terezi: a complicated contraption, spring loaded, attached to a small snub-nosed pistol. Turning it over in her hands for a moment, Terezi figured it was meant to stay hidden up a sleeve and deploy into the hand when the wrist was twisted in a particular way. “The indigo bitch had it on her. You got her before she could whip it out. Gotta say, you work fast.”

“Are you seriously giving a gun to a blind troll?” Terezi said.

“You practically need to be close enough to sneeze on someone before that thing becomes lethal. Keep it, it’s a trophy. Might save your life.” 

“A trophy?”

“Old seagrift tradition. You kill someone, you get their pistol. It’s good luck or something.”

“Given your history, you must have quite the collection.”

Vriska opened her coat. There, hanging from holsters sewn into the lining, was a neat row of four pistols. Presumably there was a matching set on the other side. 

“You could say that,” Vriska said.

Vriska refilled her glass once more, then took the bottle and made to leave.

“Get some sleep,” she said, “you look like shit.”

Terezi stripped out of her clothes and collapsed into the recuperacoon. The last thing she saw, before sleep claimed her, was the indigo. The indigo guttering, choking, drowning. But where the indigo's face should have been, there was her own.

When she awoke on the eleventh night, all hell was already well into breaking loose.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Excerpt from procedural minutes of the joint Cruelest Bar/Eccsleaziarchy hearing on the sentencing of Militant Karkat Vantas.
> 
> ADVOCATA T___, SPEAKING FOR BARRISTERROR L___,
> 
> "...Consequently it is the belief of the Upper Courtblock that execution of the accused would only serve to inspire the formation of a martyrdom myth among the insurgents and encourage their operations against the Empire. As an alternative, the Upper Courtblock proposes imprisonment in the Maze until such a time as he can be executed without—"
> 
> BARRISTERROR E___,
> 
> "Point of order, references to the 'Maze'—"
> 
> HIS MOST ABSURDLY HIGHNESS, THE GHB,
> 
> "We are all being in the know of what the Maze is, do not presume to be taking us for a motherfucking imbecile. Little sister advocata, are you believing in the most sincere of ways when you spit this?"
> 
> ADVOCATA T___, SPEAKING FOR &TC,
> 
> "Yes, your grace."
> 
> HIS MOST ABSURDLY &TC,
> 
> "Then we will work our most wicked of considerations upon this proposal. But before our business here is done, I ask a question of you two: what do you call ten thousand dead lawyers at the bottom of the ocean?"
> 
> BARRISTERROR E___,
> 
> "Your grace, I fail to see how this is—" (Crosstalk from all attendant, Barristerror E___ being slain by by His Most Absurdly &tc)
> 
> HIS MOST ABSURDLY &TC
> 
> "He had not the mirth in him. And you, little sister? How would you call that hypothetical?"
> 
> ADVOCATA T___, SPEAKING FOR &TC
> 
> "I'd call it 'a good start', your grace."
> 
> Excerpt ends.


	4. Purge

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “You are old,” said the youth, “and your jaws are too weak  
> For anything tougher than suet;  
> Yet you finished the goose, with the bones and the beak –  
> Pray, how did you manage to do it?”  
> “In my youth,” said his father, “I took to the law,  
> And argued each case with my wife;  
> And the muscular strength, which it gave to my jaw,  
> Has lasted the rest of my life.”  
> \- Lewis Carroll

They appeared overday, sliding silently into dock in longboats disgorged from transport galleons in the harbor: soldiers of the crown, all tyrian jackets with crossed white straps over the chest and tall, plumed shakos bearing Her Imperious Condescension’s crest. All sabers and muskets and drilled marching, the commands of their sergeants echoing down Vennah’s streets. At the mouth of the harbor, beyond the cliffs and the fort, a pair of frigates skulked menacingly amidst a flock of gun cutters. The Imperial Admiralty had come to Vennah

“This? This is bullshit,” Vriska said, jabbing one of the notices that had sprung up on nearly every vertical surface in the city with a finger. “Quarantine my ass. I’ve been under quarantine before and never, never have I once seen it enforced by the Imperial Aquassailants.”

Vriska stepped back into the alley and tipped her bicorne low over her face as a clutch of troopers passed by in lockstep, muskets shouldered. “I don’t like this,” she said once they were out of earshot.

Terezi frowned at the notice. “A _haemoflux virulens_ outbreak,” she said, “doubtful. This place stinks, but not nearly that bad.” She pulled the notice down from the wall and gave it a cursory taste.

“Thats disgusting, Pyrope.”

“Strange. It’s a genuine, official edict, going by the verbiage and the seal. But you’re right, I’ve never heard of the Admiralty enforcing a writ of sequester and quarantine in such a high-handed manner. Yet, here it is.”

“This sucks,” Vriska said.

“It’s possibly even the suckiest,” Terezi agreed.

All told, Terezi was surprised by how well she was handling the situation. In truth it was almost kind of liberating. There was nothing she could do but watch with a kind of detached interest as the situation developed. As night after night of the lockdown passed, her initial pangs of paranoia started to recede. She found herself growing almost sanguine about the whole thing. The circumstances were singular, perhaps. But aside from that, very little seemed to actually be happening. By her reasoning, she would have plenty of time to worry when things stopped not happening. Consequently, why bother now?

Vriska, on the other hand, was slowly losing her mind. She stopped going outside by night, spending her time obsessively cleaning her pistols in her room at the innblock and peering through the windows at trolls passing in the street. She took to muttering to herself, a steady litany of profanity and half-completed threats directed at some nebulous "him".

As for Sollux and Kanaya, the were taking things in stride.

“Thought it was going a little too smoothly,” Sollux said as he paced the _Incarnadine_ ’s deck with his hands in his pockets, occasionally casting withering glares at the frigates riding at anchor in the distance.

“Yes, usually there are somewhat more explosions and general... well, _shenanigans_ , let us say, when the Captain is involved,” Kanaya added.

“Shenanigans are definitely afoot now,” Terezi said, clapping her on the shoulder, “and I’m sure it’s somehow Serket’s fault.”

Karkat remained Karkat-ish as ever. During Terezi’s visits to him in the hold of the _Incarnadine_ , he fussed and fumed to high heaven about how she had snatched him out of one jail and shoved him directly into another. About everything and nothing and oh my God, Terezi thought, had he somehow gotten even louder in the time they hadn’t talked?

“Why does everyone have to take such an incredible fucking interest in my life, huh? What did I do Terezi? I was doing okay just being this guy who wasn’t important, just being my freakish unholy mutant self, living in hiding. But then all of a sudden, just because some twit with my blood color said some shit back in the year Duhhh, when everyone was extra stupid, I’m not just ‘some guy’ anymore. I’m apparently the biggest bulgegrinding deal on two continents and now everyone either wants me dead or for me to come be profound at them!”

“Yeah, profoundly annoying maybe,” Terezi said, grinning.

“This isn’t a joke, Terezi, it’s infuriating! You know the crew was trying to get me to preach at them? That big mush-mouthed idiot and the little twitchy idiot that looks kind of like a rodent, those two especially wouldn’t piss off.”

“Pellew and Gisigo?”

“Oh who fucking cares. All I know is that between the two of them, they make one normal-sized troll. They kept coming down here, all ‘aaaoowuh sahr, wownchu pur-lease share your wisdom wif us loike.’ So I finally told them, okay here’s some wisdom — figure your shit out for yourself and _leave me alone_! And you know what the really, really annoying thing about it was?”

“What?”

“They thanked me for it! They thought I was imparting some philosophical conundrum or something! They just can’t wrap their pans around the idea that I’m not a font of wisdom, that I’m just some mutant loudmouth who can’t help them with their problems!”

“Well maybe if they knew you as well as I did, they’d come to realize you have nothing of value to say ever.”

“Exactly! But hey, maybe I’m being too picky, because apparently I need to count my blessings for whatever distractions I can get in this floating prison. I’m so bored, you know what I did tonight?”

“Fondled your shame globes extensively and stared at the ceiling?”

“Oh, ohhh do I wish my night was half that fucking interesting No, tonight I talked, actually talked, as in ‘moved my jaw up and down and made sounds come out,’ to that lisping toolbag Sollux.”

“Ah, social contact. A positive development.”

“Yeah, sure, positive, if that’s what you want to call it. At least he doesn’t expect solid gold nuggets of staggering genius to fall out of my head every time I yawn.”

“That’s good. I was afraid you were just going to sulk down here in the dark the whole time.”

“I was planning to, believe me. But I can only scream at myself for so long, y’know? Anyway, he’s teaching me to play this board game, but I swear that nookwhiffer is fucking taunting me and...” and so on and so forth.

If there was one benefit to the situation, it was that the Admiralty’s arrival had put those insufferable merchant hives in their place. Consortium members had all but vanished from the street, no longer flouncing around like God’s gift to Alternia. They stayed cooped up in their manorblocks, quiet as churchvermin except for the occasional outraged missive delivered to the Commonblood Council concerning the abrogation of their ancestral blah blah yadda yadda. And the Council, more useless and ceremonial now than ever, could only offer apologies and promises that the occupiers would be gone as soon as the quarantine was lifted. More concerning, however, were the rumblings in the streets and cafeblocks that the hives had set aside their eternal, unproductive squabbling and were now collaborating on some show of resistance.

“I dunno, I mean, they’re stupid as all hell sure,” Sollux said, “but they can’t possibly think their lame-ass toy soldiers would last a minute against the waders.”

“It’s not ‘stupid’ I’m worried about, it’s ‘desperate’,” Terezi said. “All those fat little squealbeasts must be hemorrhaging caegars every night that trade can’t pass through the port. They must be looking at their balance sheets and coming up with some very grim numbers if the Admiralty isn’t gone with a quickness.”

Still, she had to admit, it was nice to see some trolls being discomfited who deserved it for a change.

* * *

 

It wasn’t until the second week of the lockdown that Terezi realized the true depth of the shit she was in. She was ambling aimlessly through the city when its familiar smells were split by a disturbing new element. It smelled of books and shining sterile instruments on a tray. Of fresh rope and lies piled atop lies and dressed in impenetrable, meaningless doublespeak.

 _Legislacerator_!

Her heart froze and all the deferred fear of the past two weeks slammed into her at once. They could only be here for one reason — to Detain the Renegade Advocata and Deliver Her for Judgement Forthwith. She slipped down an alley and pressed herself against the wall, straining her hearing for them. God, they were close. She’d almost walked right into them

“Damn the consortiums and damn every inch of this fetid sewer. Bunch of fishmongers playing at politics, it shouldn’t be allowed. Half a mind to string up every troll jack of that truculent rabble they call a Commonblood Council on general principle,” said a voice that dripped with the cadence of the courtblock. It was a painfully familiar voice.

“You, run this down to the homing featherbeast aviary,” the voice continued, “if the Bar wants nightly updates, by God they’ll get a detailed summation of every inch of progress we aren’t making. Adjutant, with me. His Lordship the heir-consort will no doubt be waiting for his appraisal.”

“Aye, Barristerror,” came a second voice, wheezing and weak.

 _Barristerror Lyssis Alecto_. Terezi’s memory shifted into gear, pulling a name and a face out of the depths to match the voice. No, it couldn’t be. Of all the people to send after her, it had to be her. The woman was practically a walking course of study, with centuries of experience in court and the field and a reputation even within the Cruelest Bar for implacability and brutality. Worst of all, she’d been Terezi’s dissertation advisor. God’s fangs, she had even been the one to recommend Terezi for elevation to advocata! If there was any troll on the planet more qualified to hunt her down, she couldn’t name them.

Her fingers dug into masonry as the legislacerator passed within a few feet of her hiding place. The second troll, the adjutant, nearly overpowered the scent of the Barristerror. Where Alecto reeked of the Courtblock, the adjutant just reeked. Of what exactly, she couldn’t say. Something dreadful. She remained there, barely daring to breathe, until she was certain that Alecto was long gone. Only when she was satisfied that the coast was clear did she unglue herself from the alley wall and bolt straight for the relative saftey of the innblock.

It took a solid minute of pounding on Vriska’s door before it opened a crack, just enough to let Vriska’s seven-pupiled eye peer out at her.

“What, Pyrope?”

“Trouble,” Terezi replied, panting for breath, “really big trouble. A legislacerator, here, in Vennah.”

There was a thumping from the other side of the door, presumably Vriska punching the wall. “Oh, great. That’s great. Anything else? Did they bring subjugglators too?”

“No clowns, but I did hear them saying something about the heir-consort and—”

The door flew open, a hand shot out and grabbed Terezi by the front of her coat to haul her inside. Just like that, she found herself pressed into another wall, only this time with an apocalyptically furious Vriska Serket looming over her.

“Are you fucking with me right now?” Vriska hissed.

“Absolutely not. This is all true.”

“I knew it. I  _knew it_!”

Vriska released her and stepped back, face wild with rage. She drew her saber, turned on her heel, and cleaved the table in the middle of the room in half with it.

“That hatched-insecure, slitneck,” she roared, hacking at the table over and over, “arrogant wader fuck!”

“Did that help?” Terezi asked, once Vriska had run out of furniture to reduce to splinters.

Vriska glowered and pushed her hair out of her face. “Not really, no,” she said.

“Would you maybe like to share with the rest of the schoolfeeder as to why we now have not only the Cruelest Bar, but also the heir-consort of the Empire himself riding our asses?”

“I’d say it’s because I fucking broke up with him, alright? We were pretty goddamn caliginous for a while there, but it... just stopped being fun.”

Terezi’s jaw dropped. “You jilted Eridan Ampora?”

“I didn’t jilt shit! I was very civil and respectful of his feelings!”

“Was this before or after you smashed a glass into the side of his face?”

“Ok, yes, fine, fair point, I did completely do that thing. But! In my defense, that asshole doesn’t understand the words ‘it’s over’ unless you back them up with something sharp.”

They lapsed into silence for while, each lost in their own thoughts. Terezi spoke first.

“What are we going to do?”

Vriska scratched her chin with the tip of her saber. “We run,” she said, “fast as we can, Handmaid take the hindmost.”

“How? The Admiralty has the harbor blockaded.”

“I can deal with the ships. It’s that fort that worries me. It’ll have a furnace, and a furnace means heated shot. I’m not looking to have the _Incarnadine_ burn to the waterline with me on it, so we have to find a way to shut those guns up long enough to escape.”

“No small feat — the fort will be crawling with aquassailants by now.”

“I know, it’s a real...” Vriska trailed off. She gave Terezi a probing look. “That dressing-down you gave the port inspector, you think you could do that again?”

“An officer of the Admiralty is a very different beast from some underpaid dock worker.”

“Well, sure, we couldn’t just stroll past the guards this time, but maybe if you could bullshit up an excuse to have us snuck in...”

An idea began forming in Terezi’s mind. “Like I did with Karkat,” she said. “It’s possible, if I could get ahold of something with Alecto’s — the legislacerator’s, I mean — signet seal. If I get us in, you can deal with the guns, yes?”

“I know my way around spiking a cannon.”

Terezi pinched the bridge of her nose and closed her eyes. It was risky, very risky. Honestly it bordered on madness. “It’s worth a shot,” she said.

* * *

 

Acquiring the signet turned out to be the easy part. A couple of Vriska’s crew, disguised as consortium thugs, waylaid Alecto’s runner en route from her command post in what had once been the town militia barracks to the aviary. They returned bearing a small folded paper, fastened shut with Alecto’s mark in wax. Terezi gave the letter a once-over while Sollux grumbled and cursed his way through his efforts to duplicate the signet.

Written in a compact, neat hand, she read:

_Esteemed colleagues,_

_Council & consortiums continue to prove recalcitrant, intentionally delaying the search for the fugitives. Lading records from the port have ‘gone missing,’ likely having been destroyed out of spite. H-C grows restive, threatening to pull out of our agreement & inform on us to GHB if this lack of progress continues. Intend to embark on liquidation of select council & consortium members, quoth Trolltaire, ‘to encourage the others.’ Decimation usually serves to demonstrate the virtues of compliance._

_No further developments._

_\- Barristerror Alecto_

Terezi shuddered slightly as she tossed the note into the fire. It was so very, very like Alecto to casually propose mass executions with a pithy quote. What most interested her was the mention of the Grand High Blood. Was the Eccsleaziarchy being kept in the dark of her whereabouts, of Alecto and Ampora’s operations? How strange. If the church should find out, it would mean blood in the streets of the imperial capital. It seemed that her little act of treason had grown out of control enough to threaten internecine strife in and of itself. 

* * *

 

Despite the intransigence of the locals, Alecto’s search continued apace. Terezi and the others were forced to abandon the innblock and seek refuge in a cramped tenement deep in Vennah’s bowels. Vriska claimed the owner to be trustworthy, but Terezi doubted how trustworthy he would remain should he find himself staring down the Barristerror. Every night, more hive doors were kicked in by the aquassailants and more victims of her tender mercies could be found swinging from hastily erected gallows along the waterfront.

* * *

 

Sollux’s duplicate of the signet, roughly carved into the end of a dowel, was passable. It would stand up to brief scrutiny at least. Now all they needed was a document to affix it to. This proved slightly more difficult.

“Read that back,” She said as she paced the length of the room.

“‘Pursuant to the ongoing search for the fugitives, the Upper Courtblock has determined to acquire...’” Kanaya said. She had been chosen as scribe for her ability to produce official looking script.

“‘Determined to acquire facilities within this...,’ no, ‘facilities within the premises of Fort Vennah...’”

“‘...Fort Vennah,” Kanaya said, waiting patiently for Terezi to continue.

“Okay, full stop. New paragraph. ‘As per the Courtblock’s requirements,’ comma, ‘these facilities are to include quartering for a flaysquad of no less than... no less than twenty-five’ open parenthesis number two number five close parenthesis...”

“...twenty-five.”

“‘...Individuals and their attendant materiel,’ comma, ‘the first delivery of which is included with this directive,’ full stop,” she removed her glasses and kneaded her forehead. A dull throb had started behind her eyes and was slowly spreading.

“Would you like to take a break?” Kanaya asked.

“No, read the whole thing back.”

Kanaya complied.

“Throw it out, start over,” Terezi said, eliciting a sigh from Kanaya.

“I think you should take a break,” she said, “you seem scattered. Perhaps, if we continue later—”

Terezi rapped her cane against the floor. “I appreciate your concern Kanaya, but understand that I’m trying to forge a document that will allow me entrance to a fortress full of imperial troops who are under orders to bring me in. I don’t think there is any point at which I will not be ‘scattered.’ Now, let’s start over.”

It took the rest of that night and most of the next to produce something that was up to Terezi’s standards. The fireplace overflowed with the remains of the failures. Listening to Kanaya read the completed document, voice cracking slightly from weariness, Terezi had to admit that it was a decent piece of subterfuge. With a little bit of luck, she might not be caught immediately.

* * *

 

The plan, if it could be called that, was to slip into Fort Vennah hidden among the cargo of a nonexistent flaysquad, swiftly disable the guns along the western side of the fort, then make a hasty escape. Two trolls were the most the mission could bear; any more and the risk of discovery would be too great. The only question that remained was how to get out.

“The approach through the headlands is probably watched pretty closely. I don't think we can just walk away after we're done; sounds like a good way to catch a bayonet in the ribs. There’s a jib crane here,” Vriska said, pointing at the map of the fort that Sollux had somehow managed to acquire, “on the west side of the mustering yard, by the magazine. Swings out over the cliff where it falls away, so the fort can be resupplied by sea I guess. That’s our exit. Shimmy down to the water and from there it’s a short swim to a beach where we can walk back.”

“I can’t help but notice that our alleged ‘exit’ seems to involve a sheer drop into the ocean, Serket,” Terezi said.

“Too good for a little swimming, are we?”

“Swimming? No. Getting dashed into a cliff face by the pounding surf? Yes.”

“It’s sheltered by the harbor. Not gonna say it’ll be a swimming pool, but we should be okay. Probably.”

“You’re not doing a very good job of convincing me.”

“What do you want from me, a written promise that your pretty little pan won’t get smeared all over a rock?”

“I want you to do better than ‘probably.’”

“Fine, no probablies. We’ll be okay,” she started to roll the map up, but stopped halfway through. “You sure you want in on this? I could get Maryam to come with me instead.”

It was a tempting offer, one that Terezi had to force herself to decline. “No,” she said, “this plan is dangerous in the extreme, idiotic beyond words, and probably won’t last ten minutes before going straight to hell in a flaming hand basket. Given that I helped come up with it, I don’t believe I can ask anyone else to carry it out in my place.”

“Suit yourself.”

She would soon come to regret her diligence

* * *

 

The day before the plan was to be set in motion, a tremendous explosion ripped through the Vennah dockyards. The militia barracks that served as Alecto’s headquarters erupted into a huge fireball visible for miles, turning the building into a shower of burning debris that smashed down on roofs and plunged into the harbor like falling stars. The mercantile hives, being exactly as stupid-slash-desperate as Terezi had feared, were making their move. Much to Terezi’s dismay, Alecto had been out administering to one of her ‘liquidations’ at the time.

In the wake of the blast, the full combined military might of the consortiums assembled along the wide waterfront boulevard — hive guards in their hundreds, arrayed in serried ranks, their cuirasses shining by the light of burning buildings. They scattered a few small units of aquassailants, through sheer numbers if nothing else, and began to march on Fort Vennah, where the greater number of the occupying Admiralty troops were quartered. About halfway to their destination, the aquassailants met them in the field near the rocky headlands that led up to the fort.

It took three musket volleys for the guards’ lines to crumble and flee in terror back to the relative safety of the city. The aquassailants pursued them, running them down with bayonet and saber. What few survivors there were disappeared into the winding depths of Vennah, bearing news of the approaching doom to the mercantile hives. Alecto was, of course, enraged to the point of apoplexy. But the death knell of the consortiums represented a stroke of luck for Terezi. Fort Vennah was now virtually empty, its garrison diverted to the project of destroying every manorblock in the city and executing their inhabitants.

 _Vennah dies_ , she thought to herself as she stood on the tenement roof and drank in the smell of flames licking at the sky here and there across the entire city, _so that I might live_. She wished she could bring herself to feel guilty about thinking it, but to be fair she never had liked the place.

* * *

 

The lieutenant in command of the fort’s remaining garrison sneered in disgust at Terezi’s forged directive.

“What’s it say, sir?” one of the rank and file aquassailants asked as he peered over the officer’s shoulder.

“Says that we’re expect to split our kip with more dirtscrabblers,” the lieutenant said. “Bloody lawyers, always making everything a damn ordeal. Don’t know what His Lordship is thinking, getting us involved in this.”

The lieutenant cast a jaundiced glare over the scuttlewagon full of crates. “What’s in these?” he said.

“Couldn’t tell you, sir,” Pellew said, deferentially. “We just haul the things.”

“Aye, yeah. We ain’t intelligent enough to know hide nor hair of Courtblock business,” said Gisigo. “S’all Trollatin to us.”

The lieutenant drummed his fingers on the hilt of his sheathed saber, considering the two of them suspiciously. “Hell with it,” he said at last, “get this inside. Stow it in the depot, east side of the yard. Be quick about it.” He waved up to the trolls on the walkway above the main gate, and slowly the heavy doors began to grind open. Had any of the aquassailants cared enough to keep a close watch on the dock workers, née seagrifts, they would have observed Pellew giving two of the crates in particular three sharp knocks with a fist after the unloading was finished.

Once de-crated, Terezi and Vriska found they very nearly had the run of the place. Of the few aquassailants left in the fort, most were engrossed in watching Vennah burn across the harbor, passing a bottle around and commenting whenever a blazing structure collapsed.

“God’s fangs, there go the distilleries.”

“Ah, blast. The one thing worth saving in this wretched place.”

“Drink up, lads and lasses, who knows if there’ll ever be another bottle of this stuff.”

With the watch compromised, it was wiggler’s play to slip through the echoing corridors of the fort and into the western battery. Vriska worked quickly at disabling the guns while Terezi kept watch by the battery door. It took a few blows from a mallet to hammer a metal spike into a cannon’s touch hole, then one more to the side of the spike to snap it off and leave a plug of metal blocking the gun from firing.

“There,” she said, “even if they get the spikes out, they’ll have to have the holes sealed and re-drilled if they want to fire the cannons without blowing themselves up.”

Footsteps echoed against stone down the corridor. Terezi held up a hand. “Someone’s coming!”

Fortunately, the dark and cluttered battery provided ample hiding places. They were well out of sight by the time the door creaked open and a figure entered. Terezi’s nose twitched. She knew the troll’s smell. She had picked it up that night when she had almost literally bumped into Alecto. It was her adjutant. And if the adjutant was here, that meant that she was now in the fort. Terezi's mouth went dry — she had been counting on Alecto being preoccupied in the city.

He was a weedy, unhealthy thing in the drab gray garb of a slave. A complicated metal ligature adorned his head, screwed into his skull at regular intervals. Occasional pops and crackles of psychic energy lept from the ligature, grounding themselves out in the stone of the floor. Vriska made a muffled choking noise and put a hand to her temple as the creature passed by their hiding place. Something was wrong.

The adjutant made a slow circuit of the battery, turning his head from side to side as though attempting to get a fix on a noise at the edge of his hearing. Every time his wandering tread brought him close, Vriska spasmed and looked nauseous. Just as Terezi began to worry that the thing would never leave, his head gave a shuddering jerk. The adjutant hobbled out the door, twitching with increasing violence, and slammed it shut.

Vriska was out of their hiding place like a shot. “Air, I need air,” she gasped as she flung one of the gun ports open and stuck her entire upper body out. She leaned there for a while, drawing deep gulping breaths of the cold sea air. Finally she pulled herself back inside and slumped to the floor next to the port.

“Are you okay? What the hell was that _thing_?” Terezi said.

“One of Ampora’s favorite tricks, as if we needed more proof he was involved,” Vriska replied. “He takes telepaths and hands them off to this freak mediculler he keeps on retainer. They come back like that, with minds that are all vertigo and seasickness and bad shellfish. Ampora always had a couple of them nearby when I was around him, to keep me on my best behavior.”

“Can’t you just... not read their minds?”

“I don’t read their fucking minds, Pyrope. I’m not an idiot. That doesn’t mean I can’t feel them. And I can’t choose to not feel them, any more than you could choose to not smell things.” She hauled herself to her feet and spat, as if to get a bad taste out of her mouth. “Oh, also? They can kind of sense other telepaths. Nothing precise, but that twitchy creep probably knows I’m somewhere in the fort. So, uh, we should get the hell out of here. Now.”

They slipped out of the battery and down the corridor, starting at every imagined movement at the edge of the dim lamplight that illuminated the place. A few aquassailants patrolled lackadaisically, but were easily avoided. They had almost reached the narrow stairs that led up to the top of the perimeter wall surrounding the mustering yard when a door down a side passage banged open and they heard loud voices and tromping feet approaching.

“...don’t care what your sentries did or did not see, lieutenant. If my adjutant says they’re here, then they are bloody well here. I want this place swept floor to ceiling, every room, bolthole and cobweb searched.”

“As you say, Barristerror. Alright, you heard the lady! Move!”

They bolted for the stairs, Terezi’s heart hammering in her chest. A little farther and they’d be home free. Just a little more. She had just set her foot on the first step when Alecto’s adjutant leapt from the shadows where some of the lamps had gone out and flung himself onto Vriska’s back, shrieking like a mad troll all the while.

“Get it off! _Getitoffgetitoffgetitoff_!” she screamed, throwing herself backwards into the wall in an attempt to stun the creature. He clawed at her face with his cracked nails, head jerking as though attempting to snap his own neck. Terezi lashed out with the dragon-head of her cane, drubbing him heavily across the back of the skull over and over. Had she tried to use her sword she may have injured Vriska by accident. Shouts of alarm and the sound of running came from down the corridor. Their time was running out.

“Fuck all of this shit!” Vriska shouted, “aaaaaaaall of it!” She reached back and seized ahold of the adjutant’s headgear. With a cry of rage she wrenched her arms forward, doubling over at the waist and flipping the shrieking, insane troll over her into the ground. He hit the stones with a crunch and was silent. Terezi took the gagging seagrift by the arm and dragged her bodily up the stairs.

* * *

 

The jib crane was gone. A rotting stump at the base of the wall was all that remained. No doubt the damp had eaten it away at some point since the blueprints of the fort were drawn up. They skidded to a halt, Vriska spitting a variety of choice invective and Terezi trying to ignore the plunging sensation in her stomach.

A symphony of cocking musket-hammers played behind them. The aquassailants had drawn up in a firing line in the mustering yard below, guns levelled and awaiting the order to slay both of them. And walking along the wall towards them was Lyssis Alecto, hands clasped behind her back, chin slightly elevated. She looked much the same as Terezi remembered: tall, nearly as tall as Vriska, face hard and impassive. She eschewed the traditional Courtblock field uniform, favoring instead a black doublet and trousers edged in teal. A long, thin basket-hilted sword hung from her hip. She carried herself like a force of inevitability, like a blade plunging unavoidably towards Terezi's throat. Perhaps her horns had grown slightly more worn and there was slightly less spring in her step, but what was two sweeps to a troll of hundreds?

“Advocata Pyrope,” the Barristerror said. Her voice was stiff and uncomfortable sounding. “It has been a while.”

“Barristerror Alecto,” Terezi replied, swallowing hard.

“It would be prudent for you to surrender at this juncture.”

“Depends on your definition of ‘prudent.’”

“Prudent by any objective use of the word. Because should you give yourself up, hand over the Militant and this,” she waved dismissively at Vriska, “seagrift, I believe that an understanding could be reached with the Courtblock.”

“What what kind of understanding are we talking about?”

“It would appear that your little ‘outing’ has opened some very deep rifts in the imperial hierarchy. Rifts that threaten the very foundations of the Empire.”

Terezi thought back to the note they had taken off Alecto’s messenger. “A power struggle, then.”

“To put it mildly. The Eccsleaziarchy is no longer on speaking terms with the Cruelest Bar. They blame us for your crimes, and we naturally take tremendous umbrage at their accusations. It is only a matter of time before blows are exchanged. The Admiralty vacillates, uncertain of which variety of land dweller they hate more. The army will likely side with whoever the Admiralty spurns. And Her Imperious Condescension, in all her wisdom and glory, does not deign to take an interest. While there are many in the Bar who feel otherwise, it is the opinion of myself and a few others that the benefits of having a troll such as yourself on our side when push comes to shove would outweigh the costs of your... _rehabilitation_.”

Terezi was shocked. “You came to offer me my job back?” she said.

“No, no. Far from it. I came to apprehend you and deliver you for judgement, and that is what I shall do. However,” she paused, the prosecutorial hardness in her face suddenly draining away to be replaced with genuine concern. _God’s fangs_ , Terezi thought, _there’s an unusual look for her_. “I can argue on your behalf. I have tremendous pull within the Courtblock. The Militant and seagrift are non-negotiable, the former for placating the holdouts in the Bar and the latter for placating the Admiralty, but you need not suffer their fates.”

She extended a hand to Terezi. “Please, Advocata... Terezi,” she said, “be reasonable.”

Vriska’s glare was burning a hole in the back of Terezi’s skull. “You can’t seriously be considering this,” she hissed.

She was. A small, trecherous part of her that she hated was considering it, anyway. Maybe she could force down her guilt, block the screams out of her ears, stop smelling her victims’ fear. She wouldn’t have to run anymore. She wouldn’t have to hide anymore. This all assumed, of course, she could live with herself in the knowledge she’d doomed Karkat to an agonizing death.

Yeah, there was no way she could accept, but it was fun to play pretend from time to time. What really caught her off guard, however, was her revulsion at the idea of handing Vriska over. Surely she deserved it? God, maybe Serket was starting to get to her. Whatever, she could sort that out with herself later.

“Lyssis,” Terezi said, after a considerable pause, “I appreciate the thought, really. But, here’s the thing, I think that both you and I know that you could piss away every last ounce of influence you have with the Bar and all you’d accomplish is convincing them to put a silk bag over my head before they hang me instead of a burlap one. It was great to see you again, we should do this more often. Right now, though, I have a boat to catch.”

She grabbed Vriska by the collar and lit out at a dead run towards the end of the wall where the jib once swung out, ignoring Alecto’s cry of “Terezi, wait!” The thundering _crack_ of massed musket fire erupted from behind as the aquassailants unloaded on them, and Terezi found herself hurrying through a hail of bullets. Flakes of masonry whined past her ears as the shots buried themselves in the parapets, and something white-hot creased her cheek. Vriska swore loudly as her trailing coat was holed in several place.

“How deep is the water down there?” Terezi shouted as the end of the wall approached.

“Dunno! Deep enough for a launch to deliver cargo!” Vriska replied.

“Is that deep enough to not kill us if we jump?”

“Guess we’ll find out!”

They flung themselves into thin air, seemed to hang for one tantalizing second, then plunged down, down into the water of the harbor.

* * *

 

Alecto watched the water at the base of the cliff for a long while, a frown pulling at her deeply-lined face. Her quarry had escaped for the moment, but no matter. There was still the blockade for Pyrope to contend with.

“Lieutenant,” she called, stepping away from the parapet and down the stairs into the yard, “a word, if you please.”

The aquassailant ripped off a grudging salute. “Aye, Barristerror?” he said, failing to keep the annoyance out of his voice.

“I do not recall, lieutenant, giving you or your men the order to fire.”

“I thought it necessary to attempt to halt the escape of the fugitives, Barristerror.”

“You ‘thought,’ I see. I do not require you to think, lieutenant. I require you to act when ordered and not a moment sooner.”

“With all due respect, Barristerror, I feel a certain amount of leeway is—”

“Leeway? And why do you feel that you are entitled to leeway?”

Sweat prickled at the back of the lieutenant’s neck. “Ah... well, Barristerror, given that you are only nominally our commanding officer—”

“Oh, ‘nominally.’ Yes, ‘nominally’ is a very important bit of language for our purposes here. Because you see, lieutenant, as an agent of the Upper Courtblock _nominally_ in command of a body of troops during a time of great peril for the Empire, I am _nominally_ empowered by section fifty-one, subsection two, of the Articles of War to _nominally_ administer punishment for insubordination or failure to carry out my orders. Bearing all that in mind, I do very much hope that the significance of what is about to happen to you is not lost on your troops.”

The lieutenant’s head hit the ground well before the rest of him.

Alecto turned to face the now thoroughly cowed aquassailants. “Should there be any further concerns regarding the chain of command,” she said, flicking the lieutenant’s blood from her sword with a snap of her wrist, “my door remains open.”

Meanwhile, at the foot of the cliff, two waterlogged figures began to flounder their way towards the distant beach.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Court reconstruction of the fugitives’ escape from Fort Vennah:  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6KK14lsnUyE


	5. Breach

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “To navigate is necessary; to survive is not.”  
> \- Pompey Magnus

“That was amazing!” Vriska said for either the ninth or tenth time as the two of them squelched their way through the rocky hills that lay between the headlands and Vennah.

“We’ve established that. How many times are you going to repeat yourself?”

“I’ll stop saying it when it stops being incredible. ‘I have a boat to catch,’ God _damn_. You straight no-sold that bitch. You even had me going! I really thought for a second you were gonna hand me over.”

“Don’t read too much into it,” Terezi said. Her clothing was plastered to her skin, the sodden coat slung over her shoulder felt like it weighed about twenty pounds. She longed for something hot to drink. “She wanted Karkat too, and I didn’t come all this way just to toss him back to the Courtblock on a whim.”

Vriska stepped in front of her and gripped her by the arms. “You could have tried to bargain her down to just me. But you didn’t. You didn’t.”

Terezi knocked her hands away and continued walking. “What kind of partnerships have you entered into in the past that simply not getting backstabbed becomes a surprise rather than an expectation?”

“You have no idea.”

“Apparently not.”

“I mean, I wouldn’t have held it against you if you had. I’m kinda used to getting sold out.”

Terezi halted in her tracks. “Serket,” she said, “that is possibly the saddest fucking thing I’ve ever heard.”

Vriska shrugged. “It’s just business, right? I’d have sold me out.”

“Okay, I take it back,” Terezi said, holding up a finger for emphasis, “ _that_ is now possibly the saddest fucking thing I’ve ever heard.”

“Man, I had you figured wrong, Pyrope. I thought you were some fussy little paper-pusher who was in waaaaaaaay over her head. Turns out you got some _globes_ on you. Who the hell was that dried-up old screw anyway?”

“My dissertation advisor.”

“No shit? So she was kind of your mentor or something?”

“Something like that.”

Vriska whistled. “Well, that explains a lot,” she said.

Ahead of them, a new tongue of flame erupted from the dockyards.

“Crap,” Vriska said, “they’re torching ships now.”

“They’re trying to keep us — to keep me — from escaping. Can your crew hold them off?”

Vriska waved her off. “Pfft, please. Captor and Maryam have the issue in hand, I’m sure.”

“We should probably hurry anyway.”

Fortunately for them, such pandemonium had overtaken Vennah that slipping into the city unnoticed was as easy as disappearing into an ongoing riot. Mobs of trolls packed the streets, trampling each other, breaking shop windows to make off with the displayed goods in the confusion, fighting, screaming. Simple madness had been unleashed. Even the aquassailants were finding it difficult to maintain control of the situation. Ad hoc barricades of carts and debris lashed together stretched across roads here and there, but whether they were meant to deter looters or soldiers was unclear. Above the roofs of the hivestems and shops an orange glow cast the city into a false daylight and embers drifted on the breeze.

They moved as quickly as they dared, avoiding crowds when possible and skirting the edges of those they couldn’t. Signs of clashes between the city’s inhabitants and the admiralty’s forces grew more common: buildings pockmarked with bullet holes, a neat line of trolls cut down by musket fire where they stood, an aquassailant lying crumpled in the gutter with his head staved in. They shoved their way through a plaza where the bodies of a number of aquassailants were in the process of being mutilated by a charmingly hemodiverse gang of citizenry.

“Now doesn’t that just warm the cockles of your little leveller heart?” Vriska said, bemused.

“Be quiet, Serket,” Terezi replied.

They emerged into the Vennah docks about an hour later, scorched and breathless. Terezi was no longer sodden, the damp weight replaced by an itchy sensation of near-sunburn from the heat of the city’s funeral pyre. Here ships burned at anchor, their furled sails falling loose as the ropes securing them snapped. Sailcloth charred and ignited like paper held to a candle. Up ahead, along the curve of the waterfront boulevard, moving away from them, a detachment of aquassailants proceeded at a brisk clip in the direction of the Incarnadine. The two followed in their wake at a safe distance until the soldiers drew up beside another group that was slowly pushing a smallish cannon along in front of them. A hoofbeast corpse lay beside the road, accounting for the lack of a draft animal.

Not much further up the street, another barricade had been erected to block off access. It wasn’t particularly impressive, more of a fence made from loose timber really, but it gave the _Incarnadine_ ’s crew something to potshot at the aquassailants from behind. The cannon was intended, if Terezi was any judge, to remove even that small consideration.

“We have to do something,” Terezi said, watching from their shelter between two warehouses as the cannon was loaded while the rest of the soldiers opened fire to keep the seagrifts’ heads down. Their progress was stalled at regular intervals as the _Incarnadine_ ’s crew returned the favor whenever possible.

“I told you, Captor and Maryam have it under control,” Vriska said, with every sign of confidence.

“Well it looks like they’re keeping things under control elsewhere at moment! We need to—”

She was cut off by a lisping shout of “Suck on it, ya slitnecks!” The trolls behind the barricade threw themselves to the ground as a scuttlewagon, wreathed in arcs of blue and red energy, came hurtling out of the smoke-thickened darkness to their rear at slightly above head level. It bounced once just shy of the cannon and the aquassailant line then catapulted through them, smashing the gun carriage to splinters and scattering the soldiers like ninepins. One hit the wall next to Terezi and dropped into a broken heap, his neck twisted at an unnatural angle. On the wagon’s heels, a luminous figure leapt the barricade in a single bound and darted into the staggering aquassailant line. Things got a little difficult for Terezi to follow at that point; all she could make out were indistinct blurs of motion and sprays of purple blood. A few aquassailants, finding themselves on the periphery of Kanaya’s rampage, threw down their guns and began to slowly back away with hands held up in surrender. She turned to them as she brought the brush hook she had just used to massacre their comrades to rest across her shoulder.

“Beat it,” she said in a tone of voice that suggested she wasn’t angry, just disappointed. The soldiers complied, and a ragged cheer went up from behind the barricade.

“Not bad, Maryam!” Vriska said as she stepped out of hiding into the street. “Coulda used some of that back at the fort.”

“Oh my God, you two are alive. Sollux! You owe me five caegars!”

There came stifled profanity from above as Sollux floated into view from among the rooftops, glowing slightly from psychic exertion.

“Captor, I’m offended! You bet against us?” Vriska said.

“Yeah, well, seemed like easy money,” he replied, shrugging.

“I’m having a hard time believing I just watched someone wipe out a contingent of tyriancoats with a gardening implement.” Terezi said as she approached Kanaya.

“I will have you know, Miss Pyrope, that this happens to be an exceptionally deadly gardening implement,” Kanaya replied with a satisfied little smile.

“Is the _Incarnadine_ ready to sail?” Vriska said.

“Yeah, the sooner the better,” Sollux rolled his neck as though trying to work a sore muscle loose, “the waders are pissed. You really stirred up the razorwasp nest.”

“Then let’s get out of here. Hope you saved some juice for the blockade.”

Sollux massaged his temples and said, in a voice of supreme insolence, “Of course, Captain.”

* * *

 

The _Chelicerate Incarnadine_  rode gracefully out of port and into the harbor of Vennah, a meteoric crater embraced by spits of land that terminated in cliffs separated by a narrow gap, its sails unfurling and catching the wind. Out beyond the cliffs, the ships of the admiralty stirred into action. The flock of attendant gun cutters broke off from the frigates and began to approach at speed. On their heels, passing in pondorous single-file through the gap, came the frigates to bar the exit.

Vriska had taken the ship’s helm and was narrating events to Terezi as they developed. “So the cutters, they’re gonna move in and swarm us like rats,” she said, “individually they ain’t shit but, if all of them start hitting us at once, things could get dicey.”

“You’re sure you can do this?” Terezi said. She couldn’t see any of the ships at this distance, of course, but there was a sobering smell to the wind. Somewhere, the Handmaid waited impatiently to collect her due.

“Who do you think you hired, Pyrope? I could do this in my sleep.”

“Cleared for action, Captain!” came the shout of one of the crew.

“Splendid!” Vriska called back, “my compliments to Gunner Pellew, inform him to run out the guns, round shot on my order if he would be so kind!”

The cutters were drawing closer, six of them, streched out in a line of engagement. Distant bangs reached Terezi’s ears as their bow guns fired. Most of the shots fell short, raising small fountains of water, but one or two struck home. She felt the deck shake under her feet.

Vriska maintained their heading straight towards the line of cutters, which were now splitting off to either side. Drifting clouds of smoke erupted from their flanks as the _Incarnadine_ came into the arc of their broadsides. Terezi flinched as something tore past her head, no more than a few feet away, with a rushing of air.

“What the hell was that?” she gasped.

“A good sound. It means you’re still alive. Means you didn’t get splattered by the shot.”

“That was a cannonball?”

“Get used to it, won’t be the last time you hear it. If you’re lucky, anyway.”

The cutters were close enough now that Terezi could make them out clearly: smaller than the _Incarnadine_ , itself not very large by warship standards, with lateen sails and a bare handful of cannons on their open decks. Swift little bastards too — they had already come about and were easily keeping pace with the _Incarnadine_. There came another rumble of fire from the cutters, more splashes, and then a cracking sound as one or two of their cannonballs penetrated the hull. Another shot smashed through the ship’s railing and hewed the leg off one of the crew. The injured troll fell and lay screaming as the call went out for the mediculler.

“Get the sawbones!”

“One to go below!”

Shortly, Kanaya emerged, followed by a pair of young trolls she had selected to serve as orderlies. The orderlies heaved the wounded sailor onto a stretcher, ducking as more shots from the cutters whistled overhead to dent the masts, while Kanaya soaked a rag in some substance from a bottle and held it to his face. He stopped screaming and was taken below.

One of the cutters was sweeping in towards them along their port, a squadron of aquassailants lining the deck with grappling hooks held at the ready. Much closer and its smaller profile would put it under the _Incarnadine_ ’s guns. “Oh hell no!” Vriska shouted, “Port side! Fire!” The crew carried the order down the deck and into the undercarriage from mouth to mouth. And then, finally, the _Incarnadine_ offered reprisal. A roar of thunder deafened Terezi. The ship lurched under her feet and a choking cloud of smoke sent her into a coughing fit as twelve guns worth of hell were hurled into the offending cutter. The ship pitched and crumpled. Its mast splintered under the blow, its hull dissolved into shrapnel. Stricken, it listed and began sinking.

The _Incarnadine_ now swung hard to starboard, nearly smashing another cutter as it attempted to replicate its destroyed comrade’s maneuver. The seagrift ship slewed through the water as Vriska tried to keep the rest of the swarming enemy from closing. One of the stragglers hung too far back and suddenly found itself within the _Incarnadine_ ’s broadside arc.

“Starboard! Fire!” Vriska called. The _Incarnadine_ signaled its displeasure once more and a second ship was reduced to flotsam. Even so, the four remaining cutters harried them relentlessly. Incoming fire took bites out of the hull, smashing holes in the gun deck and drawing more screams from below as iron met flesh at velocity. A cannonball tore into the top deck and hurled a rain of splinters into the trolls there. One fell without a sound, pierced through by a shard of wood as long as Terezi’s hand. More calls for the mediculler, less promptly answered this time.

“You should get below,” Vriska said as she threw the ship into another hard turn to shake off a cutter that had gotten too close for comfort. “Things are officially dicey.”

“I’m good up here,” Terezi said with a smile that failed to reach her eyes. In truth, the thought of dying in a heap on the gun deck next to a hole in the hull was less appealing than dying under the open sky. At least on the quarterdeck she might have some warning of her approaching doom.

“Don’t say I didn’t warn you. Port! Fire!”

Another broadside roared; the shots went wide this time, splashing down harmlessly astern of their target. Vriska’s cursing was cut short, however, by the sound of wood grinding against wood. One of the cutters had fetched up against the _Incarnadine_ ’s starboard. Grappling hooks came whipping up to secure themselves from the ship’s railing, followed by shouts from the aquassailants as they started to climb.

“Shit!” Vriska hissed. She ran to lean out over the railing, ducking back to avoid having her head taken off by a musket shot. “Alright then, Miss Pyrope, since you insist on being a nuisance, care to join me for a turn on the deck with a bit of light repelling of boarders?”

Another grinding sound and more grappling hooks latched onto the _Incarnadine_ ’s port. The ship slowed to a halt as the cutters dropped anchor to lock them in place. Terezi’s smile wavered for a moment as she considered the situation, then returned with sincerity. Oh well, she was probably screwed. But at least she could go down fighting.

“Why, Captain Serket, I’d be delighted.”

“Glad to hear it,” Vriska said, "lets go gut ourselves some fish.”

Bedlam descended as the aquassailants crested the railing and hurled themselves at the waiting crew. The Handmaid collected her spoils with both hands as battle raged upon the deck, the clash of steel on steel interspersed with the staccato of small arms fire. It was a nightmare made material. Terezi’s feet skidded in blood as she sidestepped a thrust bayonet. She found her footing and lunged, lashing out to draw a fine purple line across her attacker’s throat with the tip of her blade, then pivoted to pierce the stomach of a second aquassailant coming up on her from behind. The deck rolled as the _Incarnadine_ ’s gunners persisted in their duties despite the chaos unfolding above them. In the distance, one of the unengaged cutters exploded from within, its magazine taking a direct hit. A third aquassailant reeled back, her nose broken by the dragon head of Terezi’s sword, just in time to be nearly bisected by Vriska’s falling saber.

“So,” Terezi said as she pressed back-to-back with the seagrift, “‘in your sleep,’ huh?”

“Okay maybe it isn’t turning out to be a total walk-over. Color me surprised. On your left.”

A seadweller fell, howling in pain and clutching at the spurting stump where his hand had once been. A downward stab, like spearing a bit of garbage on the end of a stick, silenced him.

“Kind of a shame,” Terezi said, “I thought we actually had a chance there for a minute. That one by the railing is done loading, by the way.”

Vriska’s pistol barked and the aquassailant toppled backwards into the water. “Please,” she said, “we ain’t finished yet.”

They fought on, the ship turning to a charnel house around them. A seadweller’s sword skipped across Terezi’s ribs before she was able to kill its owner. Vriska staggered as she took a bullet in the shoulder. Crew and soldier alike died around them, but more soldiers than crew fell. The seadwellers’ numbers were thinning; they were winning. God’s fangs, Terezi thought, they were actually winning!

A great cheer went up from behind Terezi, and she turned just in time to see the starboard-side cutter loft into the air, suspended by crackling red and blue lightning. It hung for a moment, then snapped in half as though it had been brought down across some massive, invisible knee. Bodies tumbled from the hulk and splashed into the ocean, followed closely by the remains of the ship. A few of the crew hurried to cut the grappling hooks loose while the rest finished off the remaining aquassailants. Sollux stumbled towards them across the deck, a trickle of yellow blood running from his nose.

“Is there a reason you waited until just this moment to do that?” Vriska said, sneering.

Sollux stormed up to her and shoved his face to within an inch of hers. “Uh, yeah, asshole, there is,” he said, “up until about five minutes ago I still had a blinding headache from throwing scuttlewagons around while you two flighty broads were having tea parties up at the fort or whatever the fuck.”

“I don’t pay you to _malinger_ , you obnoxious little—”

“Like you’d be chipper after spending all night using your panmatter as a counterweight you eight-eyed—”

“People, please!” Terezi said, interposing herself between them, “there’ll be time enough for this later. Sollux, you did a wonderful job. Didn’t he, Serket?”

Vriska crossed her arms and affected a surly pout until Terezi clipped her across the shins with her cane.

“ _Didn’t he, Serket_?” she repeated with an edge to her voice.

“Super. Awesome. Salt of Alternia, that troll. Pin a medal on his chest.”

“Medals are tacky. He deserves a raise.”

Vriska rounded on her. “Excuse me, since when do you get to tell me how to—”

“Since,” Terezi said, “I purchased a controlling interest in this venture. If I feel that my partner is not making good use of her resources, then for the good of the enterprise I have an obligation to assert myself. Are you going to listen to your partner, or are you two just going to keep bullshitting around like an old caliginous couple who’ve forgotten why they tolerate each other?”

Vriska’s face went through about four different emotions before she finally swore loudly and declared “Fine! Deal with the other cutter and we’ll talk, Captor.”

“Now shake on it.”

The two looked like they’d much rather throttle each other, but grudgingly clasped hands.

“You got it, Captain,” Sollux said, smirking enormously.

* * *

 

The last remaining cutter had long since fled, leaving only the _Incarnadine_ and the frigates on the field. The admiralty ships loomed before the gap in the cliffs, a wooden wall barring their path. In her minds eye, Terezi saw the gunners waiting patiently by their cannons. Their lots and lots of cannons, if Vriska was to be believed.

“Long story short,” Vriska said as she adjusted their heading, “between the two of them, those ships have about forty or fifty guns pointed at us right now. They’re not gonna be effective until we get real close, but once we do there's a good chance they can cripple us with a single broadside. Admiralty crews are drilled to load and fire a broadside in about two minutes, give or take. Which means once we enter effective range of those guns, assuming we get there right after they fire, we have somewhere between ninety seconds and two-and-a-half minutes before they can fire again. We’re going to lure them into firing, then bolt between them before they get a another chance.”

“Can that be done?” Terezi said.

“Oh yeah, sure. Done it loads of times.”

“And how many is ‘loads?’”

“Once.”

“In your sleep?”

“In my fucking sleep.”

Oddly enough, just hearing the confidence in her voice settled Terezi’s nerves. A strange feeling rose in her chest, unfamiliar after weeks of tension, boredom and uncertainty — hope. Serket was a madwoman and more than a little bit of an asshole, but her record and continued survival spoke for themselves. “Let’s make it twice,” she said, clapping the seagrift on the shoulder.

Vriska laughed. “Now you’re speaking my language. How lucky you feelin’ right about now?”

“Not particularly, but I’m sure you’re lucky enough for the two of us.”

“You’d better believe it.”

The _Incarnadine_ traced a lazy, weaving course towards the frigates, as though it were in no hurry to be anywhere. Distance closed slowly; the crews of three ships peered out across the water at their opposites, waiting for the other shoe to drop. Somewhere beneath Terezi, in the twilight of the berths, Kanaya tended to the wounded and eased the pain of those beyond help. Many of the crew would never see another moonrise. The sharp pain in her side reminded her that she was technically among the injured, but she could have that seen to once she was certain there would be any point in it.

The _Incarnadine_ reeled off from its wandering path and began sweeping back and forth before the frigates’ guns — displaying itself like a target in a shooting range, taunting them, daring them to make a move.

“Ooh lookit me, fellas. Lookit how annoying I am right now,” Vriska said to herself in a low voice, “c’mon guys, shoot me. Shoot me. You know you want to smash the little spider.”

Back and forth and back again, for what felt like an eternity. Finally, some commodore or rear admiral or whatever puffed-up wader it was calling the shots lost his patience. A series of multicolored lanterns winked on and off from the mast of the apparent command vessel.

“‘Engage following our lead,’” Vriska said, interpreting the signals, “finally! Ain’t you guys heard it’s not polite to keep a lady waiting?”

“They took the bait,” Terezi said.

“Hook, line and sinker. Now all we gotta do is not die.”

Not dying, as it turned out, was not to be taken for granted. The frigates opened fire, one lagging slightly behind the other. Their barrage was to the cutters’ paltry broadsides as a hurricane was to a gentle rain. Great clouds of smoke billowed across their decks, a thundering crash echoed across the harbor, and the air was suddenly filled with howling death. Vriska threw the ship into a hard turn and began making straight for the frigates even as the hull shuddered and cracked under repeated impacts and water sprayed up around them from near misses. Terezi could hear her counting down to their doom under her breath — one-twenty, one-nineteen, one-eighteen...

The _Incarnadine_ ’s sails billowed full and taut, she glided smoothly through the calm waters towards the looming frigates.

Ninety, eighty-nine, eighty-eight...

The frigates began to shift position to keep their prey in their line of fire, turning lethargically against the wind.

Forty-one, forty, thirty-nine...

They were close, oh so very close. The frigates were still grinding their way slowly into position.

Twenty, close enough for Terezi to smell individual trolls on the frigate decks, watching incredulously from the railing. Fifteen, musket fire from snipers in the frigates’ rigging peppered the _Incarnadine_. Ten, close enough to just barely perceive the trolls on the frigates’ gun decks frantically tamping their cannons. A few guns fired prematurely, the rest could follow at any time. The short distance separating them from passage between the stern of the first ship and the bow of the second seemed like a yawning gulf. Terezi held her breath; they weren’t going to make it.

Nine.

Eight.

Seven.

Sollux’s voice cut through the tension, crying “Brace!” and suddenly the _Incarnadine_ surged forward as though it had been goaded with a hot poker. Lightning leapt through the rigging and ran along the rails as the ship practically skipped across the water. The sails fell slack and then inverted, dragging against the sudden headwind. The frigates fired with a sound that was almost as much a physical blow as it was a noise, but it was too late. The speeding _Incarnadine_ flew by them and through the mouth of the harbor, leaving the admiralty ships rocking slightly in its wake.

“Holy shit, Captor,” Vriska gasped, leaning hard against the ship’s wheel as it slowed to something like a normal speed. On the deck below a delirious crowd of crew members were holding Sollux up, cheering and slapping his back and planting ecstatic kisses on his brow. He gave a little wave as Vriska pounded down the quarterdeck stairs towards him.

“Holy shit, Captor,” she said again, goggling at him in amazement.

“Can’t collect that raise if I’m dead, right?”

“Screw the raise; you can have anything you want after that performance.”

Sollux seemed to ponder the idea for a moment, weaving slightly. “I want it backdated to last sweep,” he said at last, before crumpling to the deck in a dead faint.

* * *

 

Celebrations were in full swing aboard the _Incarnadine_ as Vennah receded in the distance. The frigates hadn’t even tried to give chase, there was only open ocean on all sides. Later would come the solemn duty of disposing of the dead and assessing the damage, but for the moment the living were alive and the ship was seaworthy and that was all that mattered. A cask of rum was brought up from the hold to much excitement. Someone sawed mercilessly at a fiddle, making up with enthusiasm what he lacked in skill. The crew raised their cups to each other, to their captain, to Sollux, to Kanaya, to the departed. Voices lifted in song:

_Once more we sail with the northerly gale_

_Towards our distant home_

_Out mainmast sprung, our labors done_

_And we ain’t got far to roam._

_Our stun’s’l booms is carried away_

_What care we for that sound?_

_A living gale is after us_

_Thank God we're homeward bound!_

Down in the berths, behind a curtain partition that served to divide the crew area from Kanaya’s makeshift operating theater, Terezi winced at the tightness in her side as she slipped into her coat. It had taken but a few minutes for Kanaya to see to her, fingers dancing at tremendous speed as she sewed Terezi’s wound shut.

“A little discomfort is normal,” Kanaya said as she washed her hands in a basin. Her clothing was spattered with near every color of the hemospectrum and there was a great weariness in her face. “Try to favor your other arm as much as possible.

“Pretty good for an autodidact,” Terezi said, elevating her shoulder in an experimental fashion to see what kind of range of motion she had, “maybe you should consider taking up the practice professionally.”

“Yes, well, stitching a troll is not far removed from stitching a garment. Now, if it had been the flux or some other disease you would have been... oh how does Sollux put it? Boned straight upside the bulge?”

“Good to know; I’ll do my best to not get sick. Speaking of our sullen savior, how’s he doing?”

“Out cold. It is a little hard to tell besides that. My predecessors recommend checking for a difference in the size of his pupils, but that is a touch difficult due to him not having any.”

“I’m sure he’ll pull through. Can’t imagine the Handmaid would put up with him for very long anyway.”

“Let me know if you need something for the pain,” Kanaya said. She bit her lip and cast a nervous glance along a row of unwholesome looking bottles arranged on a shelf, “I have quite a lot of things here to deal with that. I am beginning to suspect my predecessors might have had a problem.”

“Having met their captain, I can’t say I blame them,” Terezi chuckled to herself and twitched the curtain aside to step out into the berths proper. Here, the soporbunks were filled with the sedated forms of the non-walking wounded. The poor bastards who numbered among the departed were stowed in the hold to wait until enough space had been put between the admiralty and the _Incarnadine_ for them to be sent off properly. The notion was a little strange to Terezi, being not exactly the most observant Sufferite, but her fellows aboard the ship seemed to feel very strongly on the matter. Karkat had, naturally, relocated the instant the first cadaver was dragged in and was currently grousing his way through uneasy dreams on top of a pile of loose sackcloth in a corner of the gun deck, through which Terezi now wandered. Someone, probably Kanaya, had draped a blanket over him. It had whimsical woolbeasts on it. Terezi took a seat on the deck next to him. She listened to his muttered arguments with himself for a while and drummed her fingers restlessly on the head of her cane.

“You were right,” she said, after some time, “you were right about everything. It was all complete garbage. I wish I could say that I wished I’d listened to you, but honestly? If I had, then I might never have figured it out for myself. And that’s not to say I don’t respect your opinion... but I respect my own a lot more. And if I hadn’t reached my own conclusions then there would have always been this little nagging sensation that I’d let you steer me wrong. So don’t take it personally, Vantas. I needed to see for myself that I was being lied to.”

Pale rays of weak sunlight shone through the holes that had been knocked into the _Incarnadine_ ’s flank. Despite the dull ache in her ribs, Terezi found herself dozing. It had been a very long night. She must’ve eventually fallen asleep, because the next thing she knew she was being prodded gently with the toe of a boot.

“Wake up, Pyrope,” Vriska said, “we need to talk.”

“Do we?” Terezi mumbled.

“Yep. On your feet, let’s take a walk.” There was something off in the Captain’s manner. She carried herself with unusual stiffness, her habitual cockiness was absent.

“I thought for sure you’d be carousing with the crew,” Terezi said as they ambled slowly down the gun deck.

“Not feeling a carouse right now, to be honest. That scene back in Vennah was ugly; left a bad taste in my mouth. And after all that talking I did, too. Stupid girl — all boast, no action.” Bitterness suffused her voice.

“Don’t tell me you’re that upset about Sollux—”

“Bailing my ass out of the fire? Man, don’t even get me started on that. That was embarrassing.”

“Oh get down off the flogging jut, will you? Just because Sollux had to give us a push across the finish line doesn’t mean you didn’t get us most of the way. You acquitted yourself quite well, if you ask me.”

Vriska drew up short, back rigid and shoulders tense. “You mean that?” she said.

“Serket, listen,” Terezi sighed and leaned heavily on her cane, “I don’t know much about sailing, but I gather that your little stunt back there wasn’t the kind of thing that just anyone can pull off. Whether it comes down to luck or skill or random fluctuations in the firmament of the damn cosmos is unimportant. What is important is that we’re alive, and for that you have my thanks. Now surely you didn’t disturb my very important business in dreamland just to squeeze some compliments out of me?”

“What? No! I mean... shit,” Vriska looked rattled. She ran a hand through her hair and started over. “The crew asked me to ask you if you could ask shouty over there,” she jerked her head at the sleeping Karkat, “to say... I dunno, _something_ when they do their thing with the dead tomorrow night.”

"That's a long chain of asks. What ‘thing’ is this?”

“Beats me, they want this whole big production. Some leveller rigamarole, seems totally overwrought to me. I thought you were into this stuff.”

“Haven't really had a chance to bone up on the dogma, I'm afraid..”

“Can you do that or not?”

Terezi was way too tired for this nonsense. “I’ll try,” she said, “but he won’t like it.”

“Does he like anything?”

“No. I'll do my best, though."

“Thanks. Personally I’d just chuck the stiffs in the ocean and be done with it, but if this keeps me from having a mutiny on my hands, I’ll play along.”

“Are we done here? Can I go back to sleep?”

“Knock yourself out.”

“That’s the plan.”

She made it five feet before Vriska spoke again. “Actually, there is one more thing.”

Terezi rolled her eyes, a totally vestigial gesture. “Speak.”

“I was wondering if you’d join me for dinner at some point over the next few nights.”

Heat rose in Terezi’s face. “I beg your pardon?”

“Oh God, not like that. Stop blushing. No funny business, just... convivial, okay? I feel like we got off on the wrong foot and was thinking maybe we could start over?”

“I don’t know, it feels unprofessional.”

“There’ll be real food. No saltgrub, no hardtack.”

Well, now there was an offer that Terezi could hardly refuse. The prospect of another eternity of eating dreadful, unidentifiable slop had been looming over her for a while now. A single night’s respite would be a blessing.

“I’ll consider it,” she said.

* * *

 

At the best of times, Barristerror Alecto regarded the adjutant that the heir-consort had foisted upon her as an distasteful necessity. Right now, however, watching him foam at the mouth and convulse as a mental link was established between him and his counterpart acting as Ampora’s point of contact, she found herself wishing she had never volunteered for this undertaking. For such an expensive and labor-intensive method of communication, one requiring not only two specially modified telepaths but a pair that shared a pale or flushed bond before their conditioning, it was certainly an ordeal to be stuck in a room with.

“Allow me to begin,” Alecto said once the adjutant had ceased spasming, “by pointing out that I always had my doubts about this quarantine ruse.”

“Hey!” Eridan replied, his voice emerging from the adjutant’s mouth, “you wanted a smokescreen to keep the clowns in the dark, I gave you a smokescreen. No fault a mine if certain bookfondlin’ dirtscrabblers can’t hold up their end. And I’m not the one who started poleaxin’ doors the instant I hit town. How in several hells did you take all that time just to let them get away?”

Alecto kneaded her brow. “It is unfortunate, yes, your lordship. However, to find one ship in particular out of the hundreds in this city isn’t a simple task, to say nothing of its occupants. Especially when one is being actively hampered by—”

“Yap yap yap, more excuses. Always with the excuses, you. You want to know the kind of revoltin’ duress I’m puttin’ myself through to keep the other lords of the admiralty sweet on your lot? Because, God’s fangs, I’ve had to gladhand so many jowly old twerps I’m startin’ to get bleedin' bone spurs in my back-slappin’ arm.”

“I understand you’re doing all that you can, your lordship, and the Bar thanks you. Mistakes were made that will not be repeated.”

“Yeah, no shit they won’t. The purrbeast is out of the sack, sister. The clowns’re wise to your game. If the Cruelest Bar isn’t already in about ten fathoms a shit, it’s only because they haven’t seen fit to declare you wacknathema yet.”

Alecto drew a sharp intake of breath. “But the admiralty stands with us?” she said, a note of desperation creeping in at the fringe.

“For the moment. Ask me again in a week and I might say otherwise. Right now, our deal remains the same: bring me that fuckin’ presumptuous seagrift slattern and you got a brigade of aquassailants to keep you from drownin’ in greasepainted sopor-heads, plus all the naval bombardment you can call for.”

“It will be done, I swear to you—”

“Don’t waste my time with oaths, just do it. The _Insouciant_ reported them as headin’ east."

"That settles it then, they're bound for the Principalities."

Eridan scoffed. "Good luck with that. Fleet elements are already movin' to deny them the southern passage, and the chain across the Horn has been raised, so they're not goin' anywhere in a hurry. All that leaves is for you to run them to ground, yapwitch."

Alecto didn’t need to be told as much, a picture of her next move was already coming together in her head. “As you say, your lordship. If I may, I require access to the fastest ship in the vicinity. Oh, and a new commissioned officer. I’m afraid the previous one had to be retired on short notice.”

“Whatever, you got it. Ampora out.” The adjutant went slack, his eyes vacant, as the connection was abruptly severed.

“Insufferable wader bastard,” Alecto said to herself.

Outside the window, down past the headlands below the fort and around the curve of the harbor, Vennah continued to burn.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song being sung by the crew is "Old Maui." Seeing as trolls have John Cusack and Will Smith, it doesn't seem improbable for them to have their own versions of sea shanties, albeit modified to make more sense in the context of weird humanoid bug aliens.


	6. Transience

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "In an honest service there is thin commons, low wages, and hard labor; in this, plenty and satiety, pleasure and ease, liberty and power; and who would not balance creditor on this side, when all the hazard that is run for it, at worst, is only a sour look or two at choking. No, a merry life and a short one, shall be my motto."  
> \- Bartholomew Roberts

Something like half of the crew had turned out for the affair. Sufferites all, dressed in what passed for their best, which in practice meant “their least tattered.” Along the ship’s railing, resting on planks, the shrouded bodies of the deceased waited to be commended to the deep.

“Am I the only one who thinks this is really perverse?” Vriska whispered.

“No,” Terezi replied, in similarly hushed tones.

“I mean, if it’s your matesprit, that’s one thing. But everyone else? They’re dead. Oh well, thems the breaks. Why obsess over it?”

“I suppose one takes what assurances one can get. Maybe the idea that they themselves will be missed when its their turn under the sheet is comforting?”

“Your people are weird, Pyrope.”

“I’m beginning to realize that they aren’t actually ‘my people.’”

“Didn’t read the whole brochure before you signed up, huh?”

“It was an impulse thing.”

At least Karkat had turned up. He spent a few minutes fuming to himself and casting scathing glares at everyone present. Occasionally, Terezi could pick out muttered comments to the tune of “insipid shitwhipped crapmaggots,” and other assorted Vantasisms. Finally he buried his face in his hands and let out a muffled scream, then turned to the dutifully assembled crew.

“Gah! Fine! You want me to say something? You want some ineffably sincere shit slathered into your puckered auricular clots? Well strap yourselves in because here we go!”

He shot a finger out to point at the corpses and declared, in a voice that quavered with rage: “They’re dead. That’s pretty crappy. You’d think, given the ancient and noble nature of our race, that at some point we’d have figured out that, hey, maybe we shouldn’t go slaughtering each at the drop of a hat. That maybe the gnarled, clawed hands of the wretched deities we worship gave us these big holes in our faces so that we could use our nice, reasonable mouth-words instead of doing acrobatic jackknives off the handle and slitting each other up. But I guess that would be hard. That would required a moment of thought that we could otherwise use on inflicting pain. So of course we don’t do that, do we?”

He continued in this vein for a while, alternating between lambasting the crew and society as a whole. Terezi winced at every condemnation, declamation, and profanity. Surely none of the  _Incarnadine_ ’s Sufferite crew could have known what they were asking for when they had requested the screamy little mutant make himself heard at their bizarre memorial. Surely Karkat was singlehandedly inflicting a crisis of faith on every single one of them.

“No! Stop that! Stop fucking nodding!” Karkat barreled down on the crew with renewed fury. “Stop that immediately, like you understand a lick of this, like you weren’t hacking someone to death a few hours ago with every sign of enjoyment! You people are out of your damn minds! You know that, right? Apparently I’m one of like two trolls in the whole span of history who’ve been able to get a firm hold of this one, tiny, simple precept:  _stop killing each other you gabbling, malodorous jackasses_! There. Something. I said something. Eat shit. Call me when you’re all less crazy. I’m going back to the hold, where  _apparently_  I belong!” His armed jerked into an obscene gesture in Terezi and Vriska’s direction, and he stomped off.

Surprisingly, there was no outcry, no immediate violence. Instead, the assembled crew kept their gazes lowered as if very intently studying the planks of the deck. Like chastised wigglers, Terezi realized. Good lord, they were actually pondering his words. A bunch of bloody seagrifts were, even at this very moment, mulling over a Vantrum as if it were divine wisdom delivered from above. She could barely reconcile it with objective reality — maybe she was truly not cut out for this belief system.

Vriska stood with her mouth agape. “That’s it?” she said, “that’s what everyone’s been clamoring for?”

“Oh my God,” Terezi groaned, hitting herself in the forehead with the head of her cane.

“Please tell me this makes sense to you.”

“Nope.”

The crew was stirring from their reverie. A few of them began taking up the planks bearing the bodies of their comrades and sliding the departed over the railing into the ocean, their passing marked with splashes. Terezi found herself grinning, not out of any particular amusement but rather because she needed a way to cover for the fact that significant parts of her thinkpan were frantically querying each other for an explanation of the situation and getting only gallic shrugs in return.

“I can’t believe this,” she said.

“Well, you did say he was a rallying point,” Vriska said in a far away voice.

“True, but I didn’t think people would actually listen to him. I thought he was just a figurehead.” Terezi’s hand strayed to her collar to play with the chain of the icon hanging there. She considered tearing it from her neck and dropping it overboard. “There’s thousands of trolls like this. The Upper Courtblock can’t even keep an accurate tally. All of them jockeying to hear Karkat Vantas speak, the guy who once had a screaming meltdown over a dream where there were two of him and he could call himself a fuck-up to his own face.”

Vriska shook her head slowly. “It’s so messed up. I’m speechless.”

“Do you have any more of that stuff you gave me back in Vennah?” 

“You kidding? I got a whole rack of it.”

“Good. I think I need a drink after that.”

“You and me both.”

They retreated to the cluttered chart room. Vriska disappeared into her quarters through a door in the aft of the chamber and returned with two bottles of Vennah's finest — Vennah's last. She poured out two glasses and handed one off to Terezi, who raised it for a toast.

"Here's to the departed," she said.

"May they be safely tucked away in perdition before the Handmaid knows they're dead," Vriska added.

The familiar taste of the liquor filled her mouth, mingling with a sudden ashen tang of regret. Vennah had been an obscene little warren, but had it really deserved its fate? For every loathsome consortium troll there were a dozen innocent — well, relatively innocent — ones. Had she not descended upon the city and brought with her the wrath of Alecto, it would still be plugging along. A great many dead people would still be alive, were it not for her. How many lives had been reduced to collateral damage in her passing? The thought left her cold. One drink turned into two, then three. By the time they polished off the bottle, her self-recrimination had retreated into the depths of her mind to wait in ambush. It would be back. It always came back.

"I tried, I really tried, Serket. I read their damn book, cover to cover," Terezi said, spilling some of the contents of her glass with an overenthusiastic gesture. "I guess... I guess I can see Karkat being the same stock as the Sufferer," she paused to break into a fit of giggles, "I mean, they both really love the sound of their own voices. But! That guy, Signless, managed to somehow not be a total obstreperous  _bulgebiter_  about absolutely everything. So obviously some traits aren't heritable, I guess."

"Yeah, well, look where being nice got him," Vriska said. She bit the cork out of the second bottle and poured it up to the rim of her own glass. "Maybe the universe decided to give it another shot, just with a jackass this time. Mind you," she leaned back in her chair, looking unusually thoughtful, "I wouldn't say he's wrong for the most part."

Terezi cocked an eyebrow. "Why, Captain, are these leveller sentiments I'm hearing?"

"What? It's not like I give much of a shit about the hemospectrum, so I got no argument with that element of the dogma. If I get shot in the heart, the color the other guy bleeds doesn't make me any more or less dead. If some rustblood has the posture pole to fight their way to the top, I say more power to 'em."

"Ah, so you arrive at dissident thought through a belief in the primacy of violence. Hehehe, an  _argumentum ad impetum_. Thank God, I was afraid for a moment there might be some decency somewhere deep down inside you."

Vriska scoffed and slung a foot up to rest on the chart room table. "Ain't a belief, I just accept that this world is gonna work like it does. Doesn't mean that I like it, but I ain't gonna pretend I can ignore it. And that's where I do have problems with Sufferite beliefs. Yeah, great, let's have everything be handshakes and high-fives and no killing. Splendid. Now how're you gonna convince the people who don't want that? Because, y'see, those people have weapons. Belief don't stop bullets, so sooner or later you gotta pick up a sword. And then where are you with regards to the whole handshakes and high-fives thing?"

"Your crew doesn't seem to have an issue squaring their beliefs with the inescapability of violence in the world."

"No offense to them, wonderful trolls all and proud I am to sail with them, blah blah blah, but most of 'em ain't bright enough to pick up on the inherent contradiction in their beliefs and their actions. Most of 'em seem to think that one day everything's just gonna be all better, without any work needed on their part. They sure as hell ain't about to run off and join the insurrections. Hah, most of 'em signed on with me to get away from that shit. You get where I'm coming from here, right? 'Cuz, I feel like we might share a bit of a wavelength and—"

Terezi smiled broadly at her. "I am nothing like you, Serket."

"The consortium thugs you left cooling on the flagstones back in Vennah might disagree with you there."

"That was different. It was a regrettable display of emotional—"

Vriska held up a hand to stop her. "Hey, you don't have to explain yourself to me. Like I said, they had it coming. Honestly, it's kind of admirable almost. Not the killing part necessarily. But..." she trailed off, scanning the walls with her gaze for a moment as if searching for her train of thought. "But where it came from, I guess."

"How do you mean?"

"I dunno. I've run into my fair share of loudmouth screws who talk about 'justice' this and 'the law' that, but none of 'em really seem to care about anything but putting ropes around peoples' necks for violating some fucking obscure writ or whatever. And you... don't really have that to you, I guess is what I'm saying."

"Are you calling me principled, Captain?"

"Maybe. Or maybe you're just crazy, I can't tell."

"That makes two of us."

"Is that why you ran away? From the Bar, I mean."

Terezi shifted uncomfortably in her seat. "Something like that," she said. She intended to leave it at that, to maintain the mystique of her past just to irritate Vriska. But, quite of its own accord, her mouth kept running. She told of her neophyte career, of being dispatched to break up small-time smuggling rings and unlicensed slaver operations in the territories occupied during the war. Even now, she couldn't help but brag a bit about the speed and efficiency with which she had collared her suspects. She told of how she was among the youngest trolls to have ever been elevated to the rank of advocata. She told of the start of the Sufferite insurrections, of how Karkat had been discovered and thrust into unwanted prominence by the schismatics, and how the true nature of her calling suddenly became unavoidably plain to her.

"I was assigned full-time to tracking down and eliminating Sufferite cells. That's what we called them, cells. As if they were tumors in the body politic." She held her cup out to Vriska, who refilled it without a word. "Some of them had done violence against the state, this is true. But the vast majority had done nothing, they had committed no crimes besides believe something they shouldn't have. I found myself asking, was I so righteous that I could condemn someone for what went on in their head? And it didn't take much thought for me to determine that, no, I wasn't. It wasn't justice I was carrying out. It was murder. Maybe that's why I seized on Sufferism. Maybe I needed to believe that there was some objective sense of right in the world. One that could replace what I thought I believed in."

"I tried to mitigate matters — intentionally bungled arrests as often as I could without raising suspicion, took one or two suspects at a time and let the rest escape. I stopped eating, I stopped sleeping. My hair started falling out. And still people kept coming up to congratulate me and and tell me what a fantastic job I was doing and how I'd be a shirereaver in no time at all, and I would go back to my respiteblock and just retch bile for hours. When they captured Karkat, I realized I had a choice to make: I could run, or I could die. Because if I stayed, I would surely die. So I decided to run. Making contact with agents of the Principalities was disturbingly easy; every level of our government is shot through with them. They might be a tottering joke of an empire but, credit where credit is due, their intelligence services are second to none. I wheedled my way onto the Cruelest Bar's delegation to the joint sentencing hearing and convinced them to imprison him rather than immediately execute him."

She laughed, high and horrible. The liquor was hitting her hard, she realized. "It wasn't difficult! The idiots were tripping over themselves to lend an auricular to the golden girl of the Upper Courtblock, Barristerror Lyssis Alecto's favored pupil! They were eating out of my fucking hand! My one regret, aside from all the others, is that I didn't get to smell the looks on their faces when they realized they'd all been played for saps! After that, it was a simple matter of sewing a little procedural confusion here and there, and suddenly I was free and clear with a crate full of Vantas and only the open road between me and my transport. Which, my dear seagrift, happened to be you. Incidentally, I hope you'll excuse me for being a little creepy that night we met, but I've been kind of a fan of yours for a while. Before the ugliness with the insurrections started, my fondest hope was that they'd send me after you. Not because I had any particular desire to let you twist in the wind, mind you, but rather because it seemed like you'd be a lot of fun to pursue."

"I'd have shown you the time of your life."

"No doubt. While I'm not disgusted by you like I once was, I still think you'd smell  _ravishing_  at the end of a rope." Part of Terezi's mind cringed at the comment and was making ready to give her a chewing out, but the rest of her waved its concerns off. She needed this right now. At least it made for a pleasant change from her usual bitter mental backbiting. 

"I'm sure I could make the look work. But you'd have to catch me first," Vriska said with a smirk.

"In my sleep."

"Oh fuck you. You're never going to let me live that one down, are you?"

"I intend to hang on to it for a good long while. It has just the right combination of charming bravado and laughable blockheadedness."

"Ha! You think I'm charming. I knew it."

"And blockheaded."

"Guilty on both counts. But, hey, I hear you creamed Captor at shatranj. Don't suppose I could interest you in a game?"

"I was warned that you cheat, Serket, and that I should decline such an offer."

"Slander," Vriska said in a voice of false outrage. "I am honorable as all hell."

"I doubt that. However, since I have literally nothing better to do with my time, why not?"

It quickly became apparent that Vriska was not only a cheater, but the worst cheater on the planet. Pieces removed from play "accidentally" found their way back onto the board, other pieces became "accidentally" displaced from where they should have been. It was like playing against a impish wiggler, right up until Terezi threatened to "accidentally" drub her opponent upside the head once for every rule broken. The strange thing was that Vriska actually played better when she stopped screwing around trying to be sneaky. She was a little overaggressive for her own good, but she managed to force a stalemate on two of three games. The third game, the tie-breaker, however, was a complete blowout for Terezi.

"It is over, Serket. There is no escape," Terezi said after giving Vriska a good minute to stare at her doomed empress.

"Looks that way. Bad break," Vriska replied as she knocked her empress over with the flick of a finger. "You sure you ain't played much before?"

"Only since Vennah. But never mind that," she leaned forward, tittering, "I'm claiming my prize. You've heard my story, now I want to hear yours."

"Like there's anything about me you don't already know, creep."

"I'm curious about the two sweep gap in your record. You go in a runaway and come out the captain of a seagrift ship. Impressive, and irregular. So, let us hear your testimony."

"You could've just asked."

"It's more fun if I feel like I've earned it."

Vriska shrugged. "There ain't much to tell. I served with a privateer company harrying trade in the Principalities before the war. It's a real boring line of work, incidentally, wouldn't recommend it. Spent a while wandering around at the behest of some pampered nookwhiffs in the capital who didn't dare put their necks on the line, looking for galleons that never appeared, getting paid jack shit. The captain was a real brute too; he loved breaking out the lash at every possible opportunity. Gave me thirty stripes across the back once for mouthing off. Of course, then a few nights later he made me an officer. So in retrospect I have no idea what his damage was. Anyway, bottom line is that everyone was pissed off and ready to mutiny."

"So the ship turned seagrift?"

"Nah, not immediately. We were jumped by a Principalities warship and got shot completely to hell; just barely managed to board them before our ship went down with half the crew aboard. That was a close run thing, let me tell you. Started the night with two hundred trolls and by the end of it we had less than thirty. The captain was dead, all the senior officers were dead. I was the only one left who was in any kind of position of authority, and like you I ended up with a choice. Sooner or later we'd have to limp back to the company and explain to a bunch of really pissed off stakeholders why we were sailing this beat-up old corvette instead of their shiny new ship that they had paid a lot of money to commission. Or, instead, we could not do that. So I got everyone together and said, hey, is this really what you want to be doing? Do you want to be losers forever, or do you want to seize this opportunity and start winning for a change? And that's when we went independent."

"Nice euphemism, that. 'Independent,' as if you merely bought out your contract. And they made you captain at such a young age?"

"Yep," Vriska sounded very proud of herself, "not the youngest captain ever, but there ain't many younger. And I know what you're thinking but there was no mind control involved. I got selected on the first vote, fair and square, with only a little intimidation involved."

"So the  _Incarnadine_  is the same ship as the one from your story?"

"The very same. She's a little long in the tooth, a little frayed at the cuffs, but she's still as fast as the night she first set sail. It's funny, but sometimes I feel like she's the lusus I never had, y'know? She takes care of me, protects me. As long as I look after her, she'll never do me wrong. And as bad as things get, I'd never trade my life now for what I had before I..."

Vriska shook hereself, said "God, listen to me. I'll be back," and rose from her seat to retrieve another bottle. She hesitated by the entrance to her quarters to run a finger along the frame, feeling out the grain of the wood with deliberate slowness. Taken by a sudden somberness, she turned and leaned against the door.

"I didn't murder her," she said.

"Who?" Terezi replied.

"My lusus. You said I was wanted for lususcide, but that isn't what happened. I mean yeah, I guess I killed her. But she was hurt, Pyrope. She was dying. I hated her for as long as I could remember, but I couldn't bear to see her suffer. So I put her out of both of our miseries and never looked back."

"I'm... sorry, Serket. I didn't mean to—"

"No big deal; it's ancient history. I just wanted to get that straight, between the two of us. Do you think you'll want another glass? I'm not sure if I do or not."

"I think I should pass." Terezi pushed her chair back, collected her cane from where it was leaning against the table, and made ready to leave. "Maybe next time."

"Next time being?"

Terezi chewed thoughtfully at her lip for a moment. "At dinner. Whenever that is."

"So you're accepting my invitation?" Vriska said with badly concealed surprise.

"Sure. You're tolerable enough for me to survive another couple hours of conversation."

"Great! I mean... that's satisfactory for me as well."

As the door clicked shut behind her, Terezi could just barely hear a muted, jubilant whoop.

* * *

 

They were three nights out of Vennah before Sollux finally woke up. After a few minutes of disorientation — he seemed to think that he had been out for only a moment — he asked for a jug of water to drink, a change of clothes to replace his sopor-sodden ones, and a belaying pin to swing at the Captain. The first two were granted, the third was quietly ignored. Once all that was squared away, he took up a post at one of the long tables in the berths to make up for his involuntary fast with fistfuls of whatever assorted food from the larder had grabbed his fancy. Crew members passing through took time out of their routine to wish him well and supplement his meal with additions from their private stashes: candied nuts, strips of cured meat, a tooth-crackingly hard pastel confection of some kind, a coconut (but not any method of opening it). Gisigo in particular took great pleasure in pouring him two fingers of a liquid that carried a powerful aroma of spice.

"Special health tonic, got it from a mystical-like fella when we was out in the west. Brings long life and good luck, they say," he explained as Sollux doubled over coughing. Later investigation of the sediment left behind in the glass would lead Terezi to suspect that Gisigo had in fact paid a huge sum of money for a bunch of ground cloves in water.

"I wish I could claim credit for his recovery," Kanaya said, "but in truth all I really did was check in occasionally to make sure he did not drown in his recuperacoon." 

"Apparently that's all you had to do," Terezi said.

"I suppose. I would be lying if I said it did not leave me feeling a little useless, but at least no lasting harm seems to have resulted." 

As if to punctuate the comment an apple leapt from the hand of a passing troll, hovered briefly, then zipped through the air to land in Sollux's upturned palm. "Still got it," he said, waving the fruit at Terezi. "But you can tell the Captain that she's not getting a repeat performance. She gets herself in the shit like that again, I'm not giving her a push."

"I never asked you to in the first place, Captor," Vriska said, emerging into the berths just in time to hear him. "I appreciate the effort, though."

"You'd better," Sollux said through a mouthful of apple. "I almost flicked my thinkpan straight out my auricular. So, what do you want?"

"Can't a captain take an interest in the wellbeing of her crew? I heard you were up and about, so I decided to come see if you'd turned yourself simple."

Sollux tapped the side of his head. "Nope, still way smarter than you."

"Glad to hear it." Vriska sauntered over to him, pulled a coin purse out of her coat, and dropped it into the middle of his plate. "There's your back pay. How does an extra quarter share of all takings grab you?"

Sollux hefted the purse in his hand, feeling its weight. "By the nub," he said.

"Wonderful. You should put that towards buying a better attitude next time we make port." She turned to Terezi. "How do you feel about fish, Pyrope?"

"Can't say I've formed many lasting relationships with them, but I've heard they're lovely people once you get to know them," Terezi said.

"For dinner, you wiseass. Would you eat fish?"

"Cheerfully." 

"Fish it is, then. I dunno what specifically lives in these waters, but I'm sure there's something edible down there."

To Kanaya and Sollux's credit, they managed to hold off until Vriska was gone before reacting. 

"Are you kidding me, Terezi?"

"I thought you had better taste than that."

"There goes my appetite."

"You cannot say I did not warn you."

Terezi rapped her cane against the planks. "Enough! It's a social call, nothing more. And we'll see who's laughing when I'm eating fresh marlin and you two are stuck with slop not fit for barkbeasts."

"I do not actually eat," Kanaya said, "so I do not think that line of reasoning works on me."

Sollux snorted. "And at least while I'm choking down my slop I won't have to listen to the Captain going," he put on an imitation of Vriska's voice, "'hey! Lemme tell you about the time I got stabbed in the neck at a brothel! It was awesome!'" 

"Is that something that really happened?" Terezi said.

"Man, probably. She's a catastrophe on every level. But, hey, far be it from me and Kanaya to try and stop you from walking headlong into her bullshit web of fuckery."

"Yes, you are a grown troll and free to make your own mistakes. However we do reserve the right to say 'we told you so' after whatever is going to happen happens."

"Your concerns are noted, unnecessary as they are. Now if you'll excuse me..." With that, Terezi left them.

* * *

 

On the sixth night out of Vennah, the storm hit. It came upon them out of the south, boiling over from some larger tempest in the tropics. The stars and moons were blotted out by heavy, angry-looking clouds and the wind rose to a deafening howl. Crew members scurried up and down the rigging, reefing and securing the sails before they were torn away. Then came the rain, pounding sideways into the  _Incarnadine_  as the sea churned ever more violently beneath. The gentle chop of the waves was replaced by heaving swells that pitched the ship wildly from the crest of one into a deep trough before the next, even larger one. Breakers slammed into the ship, washing over the deck and nearly carrying trolls away on several occasions. On the gun deck, a cannon broke loose from its restraints and went careening wildly along to crush one of the gunners between it and the hull. Pellew and a few others wrestled feverishly with the renegade, doing their best to ignore the pained cries of the maimed troll. 

"Wait for the next roll, lads and lasses! Right, heave!" Pellew roared over the storm, hauling at a rope fastened around the gun's carriage. The ship pitched again and the cannon began, ponderously but quickly gathering momentum, to roll towards them. Pellew threw his huge bulk against it, catching it by the barrel like he was putting it in a chokehold. "There you are, my dear, no more of that," he whispered to it, as though trying to calm a frightened animal. 

In the hold, seams in the hull weakened by enemy fire at Vennah burst and the sea came rushing in. A frantic effort to seal the breach ensued — tarred sailcloth was jammed into the wound, but this merely slowed the leak. A pump detail was arranged, with trolls toiling in shifts to keep the water level from rising. No one was exempt from the exhausting labor, with even the Captain taking her turn at the pump. Perspiration and rain had left her long hair hanging lank and her undershirt clinging to her wiry frame as she worked the heavy iron lever up and down. As if to prove some obscure point, once she had taken her post she refused to allow herself to be relieved. Although she would never admit it, several of the crew would later claim to having heard her muttering under her breath, a litany to the effect of "We'll get through this, you and me. You're tougher than this. You're going to be fine. We're going to be fine."

Meanwhile, on the quarterdeck, Sollux had been left command of the helm. He stood encased in a psychic bubble that made the rain sizzle away into steam before it reached him, holding the wheel steady with the flick of his fingers and a crackle of energy, only lifting his gaze from the compass in his hand to steer the ship through particularly enormous waves. In a storm like this, if the ship lost its heading it could end up anywhere in creation. While he couldn't keep them one hundred percent on track, he could at least make sure they weren't blown to the far corners of the Empire. He felt the ship's wheel buck beneath the force of his will; it fought him with enough strength to break his arm if he were stupid enough to try to lay hands on it. Despite it all, the ship remained more or less under control. Or, as under control as could be expected, given the circumstances at least.

Terezi and Karkat spent the duration of the storm in the berths with Kanaya. The lanterns had been extinguished, as there were few possibilities more terrible than one falling from its hook and starting a fire, and every toss of the ship threatened to spill them across the deck into heaps. The whole time Kanaya stood with the unshakable poise of a marble statue, not even seeming to notice the deck pitching beneath her.

"We have seen worse," she said at one point. "The best thing to do is remain calm."

"Oh, of course! Calm! It's so obvious, I can't believe I didn't think of that!" Karkat said, clinging for dear life to the leg of a soporbunk. "All I have to do is pretend I'm not about to drown and everything will be fine!"

"You can also freak out if you would prefer, but it is not as if you have any power to affect the situation."

"Maybe you could try tantruming the storm into submission? That's the kind of thing the Sufferer was supposed to have done," Terezi said from where she was bracing herself against the table.

"I'm sure Mr. Serenely Perfect could talk an explosion back into its shell. But I'm not him. And the night I'm even remotely like him I will cheerfully submit myself for culling, because I've obviously been infected with pan-eating parasites."

"The crew seems to see something of him in you," Kanaya said, reaching out to catch a lantern before it smashed to the floor. 

"The crew is welcome to form a single file line to get down on their knees and kiss my gape-sphincter. Seriously, Terezi, what was that debacle you had me participate in? A bunch of slackjawed dolts bobbing their heads up and down next to some corpses? They weren't even listening to me!"

"They were definitely listening to you. And believe me, I'm as shocked as you are."

"You may simply have to come to grips with the idea that there are a great many people who consider you an important figure," Kanaya interjected.

"Fine, but why?!"

A look passed between Kanaya and Terezi. Another wave, more scrambling for balance.

"I've been asking myself something similar lately," Terezi said, once the ship had steadied, "and the best I can help you is to say that people don't choose what to believe in. It's an irrational thing — especially, I imagine, when it comes to believing in you, Vantas. So, uh, I would recommend not thinking so hard about it." 

"Okay, if I've got all this advice I've just gotten straight, what I really should be doing right now is not thinking about anything related to drowning or having mobs of idiots bothering me. I should just sit here and immerse myself in warm, fuzzy, empty-headed stupidity."

"Clearing one's mind is supposed to induce a state of enlightenment, or so I have heard. When was the last time your chakras were blitzed?" Kanaya said with the beginnings of a wry little smile.

"What the fuck is a chakra?"

"Some sort of spiritual thing that occasionally requires blitzing." She held up a hand. "Listen, the wind is dying down."

Sure enough, the howling outside was declining, the waves settling by degrees. Within a few minutes, the  _Incarnadine_  was adrift on a calm sea.

* * *

 

While the  _Incarnadine_  still floated, its condition was poor. The hull breach was a concern, necessitating a continued round-the-clock pump detail, and even besides that there were numerous small issues that could blossom into full-blown emergency if not addressed. For once, Sollux and Vriska were in agreement: safe harbor must be found to conduct repairs at the soonest possible opportunity. A few nearby islands seemed promising, uninhabited with plentiful timber and wide beaches suitable for careening the ship. Terezi was assured that the process would take no longer than a few nights, but she found herself ill at ease regardless. More delays, on top of already being desperately behind schedule. She hoped her Principalities contact was a patient troll; it would be just like her luck if they arrived at their destination only to find no one waiting for them. Once they had reached the chosen harborage and set to work on repairs, however, she found her agitation diminished. Though small the island was well-forested with the dense, interwoven canopy common to trees of the southern reaches of the Empire. She spent much of her nights exploring them alone, lost in recollections of her younger days spent in a forest not unlike this. When word came that they were to depart soon, she found herself almost saddened. 

Not long after getting underway, they ran across a ship that had been left stricken by the storm. It limped slowly along, its mainmast and mizzen damaged to near-uselessness. Vriska was beside herself.

"Fat little merchanttroll, all on its lonesome," she said. "It's riding low. Could be taking on water, could be full of goodies. Only one way to find out, right?"

Sollux pinched the bridge of his nose. "God dammit, your attention span is, like, non-existent. We're not in any shape to—"

"And they ain't in any shape to oppose us! One shot across the bow and they'll be begging for mercy! How long's it been since we had a score like this, Captor?"

"It's going to be a damn sight longer still," Terezi said, coming up on them from behind. "No pillaging, Serket. Not while you're on my payroll."

Vriska collapsed her spyglass with an irritated snap and turned on her. "Pyrope, I've cut you a lot of slack, but I think you're starting to take advantage of me. I do happen to be the captain of this ship, in case you forgot."

"Oh, naturally," Terezi replied, "you can overrule me at any time. However, if you do in this case, I'm afraid I'll have to cut off all social contact with you. Communication will occur only as strictly, professionally necessary."

"Not exactly negotiating from a place of strength, are you?"

"Call it a gamble." The comment was only half in jest. It was in fact a gamble on Terezi's part, a long shot that leaned heavily on her perception of Vriska as someone who valued the approval of someone she seemed to view as a peer over her own pride. Perhaps a perigee ago she would have turned a blind eye, ho ho, and let Vriska have her fun. A few merchants would be no great loss to the world. But not after Vennah, not with the recollection of Alecto's disdain for the lives of its citizens still ringing in her ears. Not with the smell of smoke still fresh in her memory.

A flash of anger crossed Vriska's face. She spat a curse, then said "Captor, run up some signals saying we want to have a little chat."

"Uh, what exactly are you planning?" Sollux asked. He was standing well back from them, as though afraid they were about to come to blows.

Vriska sighed. "Might as well see if there's any news we should be aware of. According to that screw friend of Pyrope's, it sounded like things were getting pretty serious elsewhere. I'd prefer to avoid walking blind into some shit-show."

With Sollux gone, Vriska drew in close to Terezi. "This is twice now you've undercut my authority. Keep it up and you might as well slash my throat out in front of the crew and save someone else the trouble."

"You said you admire my principles, Serket. Well right now, I'm taking a principled stand and telling you to play nice with the civilians. And for what it's worth, this is the second time you've allowed yourself to be undercut. I have no real leverage, save pointed protestations. I know this; you know this."

The statement earned her a sharp look, crossed arms, and a few moments of silence and drummed fingers from the Captain. Finally, as if reaching some internal conclusion, she laughed softly.

"You," she said, "are a real piece of work, Pyrope."

* * *

 

The news was very bad indeed. The captain of the merchanttroll, an exhausted-looking fellow with a heavy limp and extensive patches on his clothes, informed them, as part of a lengthy lament about his travails of late, that he'd been forced to turn back midway through his voyage due to the chain across the Iron Horn having been raised. No reason was given by the office of assize or the garrison, and passage was to be granted only following thorough search and approval by the authorities. No indication was given of the timeframe this search and approval would be conducted within. But that had been only the start of his ordeal. Frustrated, and unwilling to wait some indeterminate amount of time to have his ship ransacked by port authority hoodlums, he set a course for the southern passage, intent on bypassing the Horn through circumnavigation, only to discover the way barred by a full naval blockade.

"Honestly, what is the Empire coming to when honest trolls like myself are turned back like common smugglers? It's a travesty, I tell you. Indecency." His eyes flicked nervously between Vriska, Terezi and Sollux. "What... exactly did you say your line of business was again?"

"We're an escort gunboat, under commission for Hive Sierel of Vennah," Vriska said.

"Ah. I don't suppose you are available for hire? I've heard theres seagrifts in these waters and, well, my ship—"

"I'm afraid our plate's rather full at the moment. But you were saying something about a blockade at the passage?"

"Right, yes. Massive thing, that. Four ships of the line at least, with attendant frigates. Haven't seen anything like it since the war."

They exchanged a few more terse words, then bid the merchant farewell. A familiar, leaden sensation had already settled in Terezi's chest by the time he departed. They were trapped again. No wonder they hadn't been pursued out of Vennah; their pursuers had all the time in the world to hunt them down. 

"Four ships of the line, God's fangs," Vriska muttered, staring at the deck. "Ampora must be seriously pissed."

"We have to find a way through," Terezi said, as much for her own benefit as everyone else's. "There has to be one."

"I can't run a blockade like that, Pyrope. Maybe in a ship half this size on the night of an eclipse, but..."

"The Horn then. I think Karkat and I can survive a little proximity to the clergy if—"

"The chain is up!" Vriska shouted. "Were you not listening? They're searching everyone."

"Well surely we can—"

"Captor, tell her what we'd need to even gain entrance to a port under the administration of the assize."

Sollux started ticking off items on his fingers: "Proof of lading from port of origin, proof of tariffs paid for all subject goods, letters of passage, proof of identification for all officers, probably letters of marque to account for all the weaponry we've got on board. And these are all checked against a registry, so forgery is out of the question. There's a reason we stick to open harbors."

"There, you see?" Vriska said. Wild anger was building in her voice, a kind of crazed desperation welling to the surface. "Ampora just fucked us, Pyrope. It should have been a blade I stuck him with instead of glass. That grubfucker. That heap of manure, I should have—"

Terezi seized Vriska by the collar of her coat and jerked her face down to a point where it was level with Terezi's. 

"Get ahold of yourself, woman," she said. "We do not need hysterics right now. You will not consider the southern passage?"

"I ain't stupid, Pyrope. One ship of the line alone has as many guns as all the ships we faced at Vennah combined. It's suicide."

"Then by necessity we must cross via the Horn. The documentation necessary cannot be forged, but if there's one thing I have learned from my work with the Courtblock, it's that anything can be bought. It's just a matter of finding the proper scumbag. So I ask you, Serket, where can we find the correct variety of scumbag for this situation?"

Vriska wrenched herself loose from Terezi's grip. "You're suggesting we buy black market papers for the  _Incarnadine_?"

"I am."

"That's a tall, taaaaaaaall order. Not many scumbags carry that kind of inventory."

"But there must be some."

"Port Ordred," Sollux said flatly.

"Port Ordred," Vriska repeated.

"Port Ordred?" Terezi nearly laughed aloud. "Like, from Pupa Pan? Do the gamblignants receive many visitors these nights?"

Neither of them seemed ready to break into giggles.

"You're serious. Shipbreaker Bay is real." Terezi said.

"As real as homemade grubsauce," Sollux said.

"And the gamblignants...?"

"Never met one, myself. They're all deader than dulcimer. But I've seen some pretty incontrovertible stuff carved into the rocks around there," Vriska said.

Terezi found herself at a loss. Her mouth opened and closed a few times before she finally managed "And here I was thinking my life was not nearly ridiculous enough lately. Port Ordred it is, then. Do you think Pupa Pan will have us over for coffee?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Despite being a popular pastime in the west, shantranj proved incapable of penetrating the Empire. Much of the blame for this can be laid at the feet of the Condesce, who, upon being present with an intricately carved set by representatives of the Shahbanu, Queen of Queens and Empress of the West, played exactly half a game before declaring it "some glubbing nerd crap." The Empire's trendsetters and tastemakers, being as they were a bunch of sycophantic social climbers, followed her example and disdained the game as a distraction for styleless undesirables. Currently, the game languishes in obscurity and can mostly be found being played by bored sailors far from home.


	7. Rapprochement

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did you keep a watch for the dead man's wind  
> Did you see the woman with the comb in her hand  
> Wailing away on the wall on the strand  
> As you danced to the Turkish song of the damned  
> \- Turkish Song of the Damned, The Pogues

There was only one route through Shipbreaker Bay to Port Ordred: a serpentine course traced through treacherous currents and scores of derelicts, shattered against the rock formations that jutted from the water like the teeth of some fearful beast. Fragments of barnacled hull rotted away, pounded by surf and bleached to the color of bone by the pitiless light season sun. Navigation was slow, achingly so, and complicated by a thick fog that hung like a pall over the sea — a Sufferite burial shroud for untold hundreds of mariners lost to the depths. Somewhere a ship’s bell rang aboard a wreck, tolling balefully across the distance. Lying outside the borders of the Empire, this graveyard appeared on no official maps except for a few hasty mentions of hazardous waters. There was nothing there, to the knowledge of any surveyor, to justify the effort of traversing it. Honest sailors kept their distance. There were whispered tavernblock rumors of ghost ships gliding amongst the wreckage, silent and malevolent, hunting those foolish enough to stray into their waters, hungering eternally.

A shiver ran up Terezi’s spine; she told herself it was only the cold. She did not consider herself superstitious, but she had to admit that if there was anywhere in the world that would play home to the restless dead, it was this. The crew, to a troll, had gone quiet. They communicated in low tones, as though fearing that their voices would bring something terrible swooping in out of the mists. On the quarterdeck, Vriska steered the _Incarnadine_ with a delicate touch, muttering to herself, “twenty cables north... half a degree west, then thirty-four cables, no, damn, forty cables...” Not even seagrifts had charts of this realm. The risks presented by the possibility of them falling into the hands of the Cruelest Bar were too great. So memory had to suffice, much to the detriment of those whose mental ink was less than indelible.

Tension stretched minutes into hours. Even as the storied terrors of this place failed to materialize to claim them, their absence seemed ever more terrible. Terezi found herself pacing the deck, if only to give herself something to do other than fixate on her total, assured disbelief in ghosts. So focused was she on not believing in them that she nearly plowed into Kanaya.

“Is something wrong?” Kanaya said, following a perfunctory exchange of apologies.

“No. Nothing at all. Just stretching my legs,” Terezi replied.

“Of course. You of all people would put no stock in the stories of this place.”

“Naturally.”

“You certainly never have let my nature bother you. Being that I am, technically speaking, dead.”

Terezi froze in place. “There... is not such thing as ghosts, right?”

Kanaya gave her another one of those little smiles. “You are asking a rainbow drinker that?”

Terezi took a quick internal vote and unanimously resolved to strike the conversation from the record.

After what seemed an eternity, they left the last of the rocks behind. In the distance, a golden glow edged the horizon which, as the _Incarnadine_ drew closer, resolved itself into the lights of a town. It sprouted up around the foot of a rocky island rearing from the sea. Buildings made from the remains of ships sat supported on pilings that had been sunk into the shallows. It twined up the side and over the top of the island, like a mesh of luminous creepers. Complicated networks of gantries, cranes, walkways, and bridges ran along the stone flanks. There was no planning to the place, it was like some massive growth unrestrained by any sense or order.

“Port Ordred,” Vriska said, “the last free port, and once the seat of the gamblignant brethren of the coast. Feast your sinuses, you’re one of the few legislacerators to ever see it. Smell it. Whatever. Are you ever gonna let me in on the story behind the whole smellovision thing?”

“A girl needs her secrets,” Terezi said. “It’s deeply personal.”

“Suit yourself.”

* * *

 

Whatever Port Ordred had once been, these nights it served as the catch in world’s drain. All manners of detritus and villainy from each of the round planet’s imagined corners came to find its home there, washing up on its shores and adding another layer to the ancient crust covering the wood and stone. Terezi could smell it from a distance as they ascended into the town from the docks, where they had been charged an exorbitant fee to tie up the _Incarnadine_. It was the worst elements of Vennah writ large, flowing fever-hot through the walkway-streets and alleys. The place seemed to throb unwholesomely, like a diseased organ.

The crew had been released on shore leave, with a small delegation left behind on the ship under the command of Pellew and Gisigo to ensure Karkat’s safety. Now Terezi, Vriska, Kanaya and Sollux pushed their way through the press of the town proper. It was fecund with with every kind of criminal element Terezi could name and more than a few she couldn’t. A squad of mercenary excrucicubitors, deserters from the armies of the Shahdom, swaggered past, their colorful and heavily ornamented uniforms a clash of scents. From within the cramped niche of an open-air cafeblock, two jadebloods with extensive facial tattoos sipped at tiny mugs of coffee and blew clouds of pungent smoke from long-stemmed clay pipes. One of them smiled fangily at Kanaya and called “are you lost, little one?” after her. Hucksters, hawkers, con-artists, and vendors of all stripes and varieties hounded them, offering everything from miracle cures to magical talismans, to weapons, to food, to affection at a reasonable hourly rate. The windows of a tavernblock exploded outward as a troll was flung through them. He hit the ground and curled in on himself as another troll burst out the doors, waving an enormous two-handed sword. The swordsman, disoriented from copious amounts of illegal substances, charged screaming at Terezi’s group, only to run headlong into a punch from Vriska that left him sprawled out next to the jettisoned man.

“Newbies,” she muttered in disgust. “Come here for the first time and try to shove all the illicit crap into their bodies that they can lay hands on. Can’t pace themselves.”

There were innblocks aplenty in Port Ordred, ranging from seedy beyond belief to the kind of upscale establishment that wouldn’t have been out of place in the capital. They settled for one that struck a comfortable balance between the two extremes, one that didn’t seem to scream _you will be robbed blind during the day_ , but remained affordable. A slate hanging above its door announced its name to be “The Shipbreaker Arms.” It was sparse and down at the heels, with warped floorboards and chipped furniture, but the rooms were in the neighborhood of clean and the doors locked securely.

“How the hell does one find anything in this place,” Terezi said once the four of them had reconvened around a table in the back of the empty common room. “It’s anarchy.”

“Fixers,” Sollux said.

“Ficktherth?” Terezi repeated.

“FIXERS,” he said again, with heavy emphasis on the troublesome esses. “There’s this whole economy built up around guys willing to stick their hands into the really gross places of this dump to see what they can pull out. They’re the guys who know the guys who have what you need. Speaking of, Captain, are you still on decent terms with that fucking fleshwaste Gryggs?”

“Sorta,” Vriska said, picking idly at her teeth with a fingernail. “He burned me a couple times, I burned him back a couple times, as far as I’m concerned we’re square.”

“We’re going to need him, unfortunately. So far I think we’ve got the proof of lading covered — Gerhae and Vennah keep their records vague enough to avoid too many questions from the assize. We’re not carrying any goods subject to tariffs, so that’s not a problem. I can scare up some identification without a lot of trouble; the market’s full of papers from poor idiots who just sailed out of port one night and never came back, so we’ll be spoiled for choice.”

“Sounds good. You wanna run security for Captor, Maryam?”

“Of course. We cannot have some ruffians thinking that just because he is a spindly nerd they can go pushing him around.”

“This spindly nerd just threw a ship three hundred yards.” Sollux looked offended. Kanaya ruffled his hair playfully.

“Yes, but it would be a shame if you overexerted yourself bouncing someone’s head off the ground when I could happily do the same on your behalf. Besides, it would make me feel useful for a change.”

Sollux rolled his eyes. “That leaves the letters of marque and transit. Those are the real kick in the globes, and where we need Gryggs. Can we trust him not to burn us on this?”

“A little nub-candy will keep him in line. I know this guy, he’s not complicated.” Vriska said. “What about you, Pyrope? You gonna sit cooped up in your room the whole time so as to not get anything disreputable on your shoes, or can I show you around?”

“Last time you gave me a grand tour, it ended with you lying on the floor bleeding from the neck.”

“Luckily that kinda service costs extra in Ordred. Oh, will you stop squirming, Maryam? It wasn’t _that_ big a deal.”

* * *

 

Before the tour could begin, there was business to attend to. Getting Gryggs’ help evidently required not only payment, but propitiation. And for that, the right kind of offering needed acquiring. A number of shops were visited, their interiors cluttered with a wide assortment of wares appalling to the last flickering remnants of propriety left in Terezi’s mind, before they found what they were looking for: an herbalist specializing in the kind of flora that would earn anyone caught in their possession a quick trip to the gallows. The proprietor engaged Vriska in a haggling ritual that involved lots of aggrieved noises and emphatic gestures, this being de rigueur for all transactions in Port Ordred. After a great deal of drama, he threw his hands up, announced that Serket would see him reduced to penury, and slammed a small satchel onto the counter. Vriska replied in kind with a fistful of coins. Thus was their exchange concluded in the finest spirit of compromise, leaving everyone involved feeling irritable and ripped-off.

“What contraband is this?” Terezi said, inspecting the satchel as they continued on their way.

“Shadeleaf. Do _not_ stick your nub in there, that stuff is uncut.”

“Oh my, this is so incredibly illegal.”

“Welcome to Ordred, babe. Get used to it.”

“Is that the civic motto?”

“Might as well be.”

With propitiation in hand, the next task was to find their scumbag. This proved considerably more tedious — Gryggs was known to frequent a selection of dismal warrens around the town, and locating him came down to simple process of elimination. He was not to be found in the smoke-darkened establishment where the clientele spoke entirely in the harsh, consonant-benighted dialect of the Principalities. Nor was he in the gambling parlor, where muted screaming could be heard coming from behind a foreboding door in the back as a debtor was gently reminded of the importance of paying their arrears. Nor the sopor den, tended by a defrocked member of the clergy, his facepaint smeared and flaking, who unsuccessfullyy tried to convince them that enlightenment was only one small taste of toxic slime away.

“What kind of businessman makes it this hard to give him money?” Terezi said as they took to the streets again.

“One who ain't real bright, but has bumblefucked his way into having real valuable contacts. Gryggs is just super, super fortunate he's more valuable alive to a lot of people alive than dead."

“Very poor methodology, in my view, concentrating so much... _institutional knowledge_ , let’s call it, in a few individuals. If you subvert one fixer, suddenly you’re in a position to gut this place end-to-end.”

Vriska gave her a sidelong glance. “Can take the troll out of the Bar but not vice-versa, huh?”

“We all have our hobbies. I like to ponder how I might go about eviscerating any given place I happen to find myself.”

“I guess that’s why they hid it behind all those rocks, to keep people like you away from it.”

“It’s already blazing cheerily in my head. Another stirring triumph for law and order.”

They finally located him in a tavernblock down by the docks. It was the kind of place where the beer was mostly water, and only then if you were lucky. No sooner had the shadeleaf satchel hit the table than Gryggs, a sneering malcontent with the hyperactive speech and mannerisms of a habitual stimulant user, snatched it up, buried his nose in it, and inhaled deeply. He stayed like that for a moment, lips pursed in thought.

“Alright, sure, yeah. It’s genuine. You got three minutes of my time, Serket. I’m a busy troll, can’t sit here dickering with you forever,” he said, lowering the satchel and shooting a withering glare at Terezi as if noticing her for the first time. “Who the fuck is this then?”

“My associate by solemn compact. Are we going to have a problem?”

“I dunno, are we? She looks like trouble.”

Vriska leaned in closer to him across the table, the motion disguising her sliding a hand into her coat. “Well then she’ll fit in nicely here, won’t she?”

“The _unwelcome_ kind of trouble. I got half a mind to let the Governor know you’re dragging around a bloody sc—”

Vriska’s flintlock clacked as she laid it on the table, muzzle pointed not quite at Gryggs.

“Go on, finish your sentence. I dare you,” she said with venomous sweetness.

“—andalously charming young woman,”

“Have my three minutes started yet?”

“Did I say three? I meant one. Very busy tonight, places to be.”

“Fine, I’ll be brief. I need letters of marque and transit for a twenty-four gun corvette, Principalities make. Put the word out, but don’t send me anyone you wouldn’t buy from yourself. Got it?”

“Oh sure, sure. Want anything else impossible while I’m at it? Maybe some liquid wood? A barkbeast that speaks Trollatin?”

“If you happen to come across a seller, sure.”

“My finder’s fee is gonna be double for this. Gonna have to jump through a fuckload of hoops.”

“Get to jumping, then. We’re at the Shipbreaker Arms. You’ll get your fee when I get my goods.”

It was only through a tremendous feat of will that Terezi managed to wait until she and Vriska were outside before she burst out laughing.

“What was _that_ , Serket? Are you only one who gets to call me a screw now?”

Vriska shrugged and shot the cuffs of her coat. “Like I said, solemn compact. He insults you, he’s insulting me.”

“Hehehe, is that so? That sounds an awful lot like taking umbrage on my behalf. Don’t trouble yourself; it’s not as if I care.”

“Ain’t called you a screw in forever anyway. And even if I did, I wouldn’t mean it like assholes like Gryggs do.”

“I don’t care, Serket. I don’t. I’ve been called far worse.”

“Then you won’t care if I occasionally make some bulgereek mind their manners in front of me. You hungry? There’s this guy around here somewhere that makes little fried ball things out of some kind of mashed bean stuff. They’re good.”

“Oh yes, my valiant cavalreaper, take me to these fryballs so that I might be safe from hoodlums calling me quaint slurs.”

“You’re a pain in the ass.”

“Gasp! I am betrayed!”

* * *

 

Terezi had to admit that one virtue Port Ordred possessed was an absence of pretense. The shady inhabitants of Ordred reveled in their shadiness, made no effort to present themselves as anything other than what they were. It was openly, defiantly vile. While she still felt that the entire town and those who dwelt in it could do with being doused in some kind of caustic chemical to take the topmost layer of grime off, followed by a short sharp drop of around six feet, she found herself almost respectful of their unapologetic nature.

Vriska’s tour started with the fryball vendor, whose merchandise was indeed delicious, and consisted of a directionless ramble through the confused jumble that made up the town. She seemed to have no particular final destination in mind, and frequently diverted course to show off points of interest, most of which involved violent betrayals or noteworthy locations of ill repute. Here was where Ladimere Ironfist got run clean through by Zuphiqar Ashmaker, sparking a legendary gamblignant vendetta that would last for countless sweeps. Over there, down a flight of stairs, was the only place in this hemisphere where you could get a sort of bright green wine that would have you talking to God after two glasses. To one side, the remains of the imperial flagship _HICS Inscrutable_ had been turned into a casino. Above, suspended by ropes lashed to the network of walkways and gantries, the skeleton of a deep leviathan slain by one long-dead captain or another. It all started to blur together after a while. Terezi let Vriska’s voice wash over her without bothering to parse out individual words, and realized that she felt more at peace in that moment than she had in a very long time. It was bizarre, given the company and locale, but undeniable. It reminded her of the night in Gerhae that Serket had shown off the _Incarnadine_ , her pride and joy, for the first time. She exuded a free and easy confidence, it seemed to ooze from her pores and suffuse the air around her out to a distance of several feet. She carried it with her like a reality-warping bubble, within which Terezi now walked. Out there, somewhere beyond the rocks of Shipbreaker Bay and across the dark seas, the Empire was threatening to tear itself apart. But here, on this dingy wooden street in a town that had a competitive bid for the title of Alternia’s Puckered Asshole, all was right with the world.

 _This is pathetic_ , a voice at the back of Terezi’s head whispered as Vriska, apropos of nothing, started in on a summary of naval combat theory. _Have you forgotten what she is? A seagrift, a murderer, a common pirate._

By that token, what are we?

_Not her. Nothing like her._

Are we quite sure about that? There’s a great many people who would argue to the contrary, were they still able to.

_She’s getting to you._

Gotten. Past tense.

She was dragged out of internal argument by the realization that Vriska had stopped talking, halted in her tracks, and was now staring straight ahead along the street. She spun in place, sword flashing in the lamplight. A low, whining buzz crept in at the edge of Terezi’s hearing and she felt tiny claws scrabble over her thinkpan as Vriska cast her mind out over the crowd. She was searching for something, for someone. Terezi’s hand, of its own volition, pulled her blade a ways out of her cane.

“What is it?” she said in a low voice.

“You don’t smell anything... off, do you?” Vriska said.

“If you mean ‘off’ in the sense of old dairy products, then this entire place smells off. But not besides that.” Her palms were itching. Something was amiss.

Vriska looked up and down the street once more, then slowly sheathed her weapon.

“Nerves,” she said. “Must’ve been a leak in that shadeleaf pouch. I hear it can mess you up if it even gets under your fingernails.”

The itching in Terezi’s palms failed to subside.

It failed to subside for two nights straight. Her paranoia was, of course, completely ridiculous. One sniff out the window of her respiteblock at the Shipbreaker Arms could give her any number of things to be properly paranoid about, and yet here she was working herself up over a moment of dramatics on Serket’s part. It was absurd. Preposterous. And yet... the fact that she was still alive was thanks, in part, to seemingly nonsensical twinges like this one. Agents of the Courtblock learned to listen to these impulses, or they died. Perhaps it was some subliminal hint of trouble on the wind, a distant bouquet of deceit and skulduggery at play. Too subtle for her nose to consciously pick out, but still present enough to raise her hackles.

Whatever it was, Vriska could sense it as well. She became less talkative while they were out and about. The sensation of her telepathic probing became common enough that Terezi stopped noticing it. But even her senses couldn’t trace the source of their mutual discomfort.

On the third night, Gryggs presented himself to them in the common room of the innblock, bringing with him a very smug expression and four threadbare syllables: “Got one for ya.” He lead them on a long trek through Ordred, down past the docks and into a part of town given over to warehouses in an advanced state of disrepair. What few details Terezi managed to pick out of his constant, animated prattling suggested that another band of seagrifts had managed to come into possession of such papers as were needed, and were in a hurry to offload them. He stopped in front of one warehouse in particular, glanced up and down the deserted street, and hustled Terezi and Vriska inside.

After a brief period of posturing with the sellers, it turned out that Gryggs did not, in fact have one. What he had was, instead, a gang of thieves with a packet of doggerel masquerading as letters of marque and transit. It was a transparent ruse, but the aim was never to trick anyone into purchasing such obvious forgeries. Rather, it was to trick them into turning up somewhere they could be discreetly and thoroughly relieved of their money. There were many weapons involved, most of them pointed at Vriska.

Terezi would later muse that while Gryggs was not a very intelligent man, he was smart enough to recognize that the quiet, smiling woman who resembled some kind of clerk was out of place in Port Ordred in the same way that a large fin scything through the water is out of place at a beach. This put him several rungs above their would-be robbers, who unwisely disregarded her razor sharp, crescent moon grin and soft giggling as a sign of imbecility rather than pointed amusement. Not nearly as pointed, however, as the swordstick that dispatched two of them in a heartbeat. In the moment of heated uncertainty that followed, the would-be bandits suddenly found a few of their number, the lowbloods and less strong-willed, turning against them, driven to treachery by a voice in their heads that intruded directly on their thoughts without having the grace to check in at their ears first:

**THE 8ASTARDS ARE PLOTTING AGAINST YOU! KILL THEM!**

A great deal of carrying-on ensued, with requisite property damage and all the usual trappings of a wild night in Ordred: swinging on light fixtures, sliding down bannisters, a woman with a blunderbuss full of roofing nails, the whole bit. Had the town possessed a tourist industry, and they would have to be very doughty tourists indeed, the incident could have been sold as a floor show. Dinner with Deluxe Fracas Included at No Extra Charge.

“Gryggs,” Vriska said, once the fray had been concluded, as she pulled a stray nail out of her arm and tossed it to the floor, “you are such a fucking idiot.”

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” the fixer pleaded from his hiding place under a toppled pile of bolts of linen. “This guy... he’s never pulled anything like this before! I thought he was solid!”

“Which guy?” Terezi called from across the room. She poked a heap of something unspeakable with her cane. “This one? He’s more liquid now, I’d say. Nice job winging that grenade back, Serket.”

“That’ll teach him to trim the fuses so long. And nice job yourself, Pyrope. I swear that huge guy with the cutlasses walked five steps before he realized his head wasn’t attached anymore.”

Gryggs scrabbled his way out of his bolthole on his hands and knees. With jaw hanging open, he took in the scene before him. He had to look ceilingwards at times; it had been that kind of fight.

“God’s fucking fangs,” he muttered, “you guys didn’t tell me you was psycho.”

“I can’t speak for my associate,” Terezi said, picking her way through the leftovers, “but I am a model of mental composure.”

Gryggs hauled himself to his feet, dusted himself off, and fortified his nerves with a snort from a small pouch. “No. Nonono, that’s good. Psycho is good. Opens some avenues. Gives us _options_... I’m still getting my finder’s fee, right?”

“If you walk out of here with a full compliment of limbs, it’ll be a goddamn testament to my self-control,” Vriska said.

“Okay!” Gryggs held up his hands to shield himself from her. “We can talk about that later! I got some ideas though! There’s people in this town who need psychos like you two! People with lots of gratitude to go around!”

“Gratitude to the tune of the documents we need?” Terezi said, sliding neatly into place beside Vriska. They had backed him into a corner, and he was sweating profusely. His eyes darted back and forth between them.

“Can you... can you give me some space? You kinda scare the living shit out of me,” he said.

“Are you going to get me shot with roofing nails again, Gryggs?” Vriska said.

“She doesn’t like getting shot with roofing nails,” Terezi added.

“No, I don’t.”

“How many fingers do you think you could lose before you become unable to perform your job, Mister Gryggs?”

“I bet it’s a lot.”

“We may even be able to start thinking in terms of toes.”

“Is that normal Courtblock procedure?”

“Oh my, yes. With considerable precedent.”

“Hear that, Gryggs? Precedent.”

For the first time in his life, Gryggs found himself wondering if he shouldn’t have gone into a more honest line of work.

* * *

 

Their return to the Shipbreaker Arms was heralded by Vriska kicking in the door and storming through the common room, pushing a thunderhead of fuming anger before her. Terezi brought up the rear, trying to communicate through body language and attitude that she was only passingly acquainted with this woman and therefore could not be held responsible for any acts of drive-by bitchiness that occurred. Sollux and Kanaya, being used to her variable temper, didn’t even look up from what they were doing — perusing a broadsheet and hemming a dress respectively. Vriska stomped over to their table and slammed a hand down on it to draw their attention.

“Well?” she demanded. “Don’t suppose you two’ve done anything useful with yourselves tonight?”

Sollux wordlessly produced a leather envelope and tossed it to her. She ripped it open and rifled the contents with an air of someone who dearly wanted to find something to be angry about.

“Is this everything?” she said, after realizing that she wasn’t going to get the chance to chew someone out.

“Should be,” Sollux said from behind his broadsheet.

“They didn’t give you any trouble?”

“There was a little trouble,” Kanaya said. Her brush hook was leaning against the wall behind her, a few specks of multi-hued blood still dotted its blade.

“She threw me out of a third story window,” Sollux said, an edge to his voice.

“You were in the way, and I thought it best if you were removed to a safer location.”

“I could’ve taken them!”

“Including the one sneaking up behind you with a garrote? Anyway, you had a soft landing.”

“In a fucking hoofbeast trough!”

“I still do not understand why you did not just... fly, instead of plummeting.”

“It’s kinda hard to remember you can do that when you suddenly find yourself getting flung laterally out a window, Kanaya.”

“The long and the short of it is that we got what we needed and are no worse for wear. You look as if you did not have as much luck, Captain.”

Vriska ran a hand through her hair. “Yeah, you could say that. Could definitely say that tonight was total, irredeemable bullshit. If anyone needs me, I’m going to sleep for fourteen hours. Do hesitate to knock.”

“Is there a reason,” Sollux said to Terezi, after Vriska had departed, “that there’s a nail sticking out of her ass?”

“Tried her hand at carpentry and it didn’t go so hot,” Terezi said, grinning broadly.

“Do you think she knows?” Kanaya said.

There came a shout of “What the fuck!” from upstairs.

Kanaya sighed heavily, set her needlework aside, and pushed her chair back. “I will get the pliers.”

* * *

 

When Gryggs next presented himself at the Shipbreaker Arms, he had the decency to look far less pleased with himself.

“This one’s a sure thing,” he said from the doorstep, shifting awkwardly from one foot to the other, “but I dunno if you’re gonna like it.”

“Gryggs, if the Handmaid herself showed up offering to sell me what I need, I’d at least stick around to hear her asking price,” Vriska said.

“Alright, if you’re sure,” he stepped back and nodded at someone out of sight. A trio of trolls gently pushed him aside to take his place. They were obviously enforcers, heavies of the sort who didn’t mind a little backtalk because it gave them an excuse to work out some repressed anger issues. They were clad in ill-fitting livery and wore wigs — well, nominally wigs. More like small furry animals that someone had stomped flat and then powdered.

“Terezi Pyrope and Vriska Serket?” one of them, by all indications their leader, said.

“That would be us. Who’s asking?” Vriska replied.

“The Governor,” replied the bewigged thug, “has requested your presence so as to discuss a matter of some importance.”

“Is this the kind of request where we don’t get a say in the matter?” Terezi said.

The enforcer laughed and gave her buddies a _can you believe this girl?_ look. “Sweetheart, we’re just messengers. We may look dumb, but even we aren’t stupid enough to try and strong arm the people who terminally wrecked the whole crew of the _Heated Discourse_.”

“Nice work, by the way,” said one of the other thugs, in a way that suggested him speaking more than one syllable was an epochal event.

“Very thorough,” said the third.

“So yeah, only say the word and we’ll be off to ugly up somewhere else,” said their leader.

“Will you excuse us for a moment?” Terezi said. She pulled Vriska away from the door, into a huddle.

“What do you think, Serket?”

“I’m inclined to accept just based on them being the first polite goons I’ve ever seen. It’s like a natural oddity or something. But still, the Governor of Port Ordred... this smells political.”

“I was thinking along the same lines. I doubt this is going to be a simple transaction.”

“Can we really afford to be choosy, though?”

“No, we can’t.”

They broke their huddle and returned to the door.

“Alright, we’ll play along,” Terezi said.

The leader clapped her hands. “Wonderful.” She turned to one of the other thugs and said, “Bring the scuttlecoach around.”

The thug departed and returned driving a clattering, hoofbeast drawn carriage with darkly tinted windows. The door swung open to reveal another two liveried enforcers.

“After you, ladies,” the leader said.

They set off, rattling and jostling over Ordred’s uneven streets. The crowds parted before the scuttlecoach, recognizing it as the Governor’s personal conveyance. To the best of Terezi’s ability to tell, they were making a long, slow loop around the perimeter of the island, slowly gaining altitude. More than once, they rode heavy-duty lifts up to higher levels of the town. They continued through areas of concentrated wealth, the uppermost crust of the midden, past hives that would have put the nobility of the imperial capital to shame.

They slowed to a halt in front of the largest of the manorblocks, a sprawling complex that occupied a significant portion of the island’s highest part. It bordered on the obscene; the wings had wings. The carriage door opened and the leader of the Governor’s bodyguards gave them a little sweep of her arm.

“The Governor bids you welcome.”

* * *

 

Enibal Barsid, Governor of Port Ordred, rose from behind his desk to greet them as his bodyguards ushered them into his study. He was a stocky man, well into the twilight of his life, but still possessed an outdated rakish quality. He projected the kind of gentility expected of bluebloods, but the illusion was only skin deep; his eyes were unmistakably those of someone who had been hatched a seagrift and would die a seagrift. He nodded at his bodyguards and they withdrew, closing the double doors behind them.

“Miss Pyrope, Captain Serket, it is an honor,” he said, bowing to them. “I’ve heard a great deal about you; you’re becoming quite notable. The second and third most wanted trolls in the Empire, what a delight to make your acquaintance.”

“Which one of us is which?” Vriska said, turning to take in the room’s opulent — frankly, tacky — decor.

“It isn’t a competition,” Terezi said.

“Speak for yourself.”

“A matter for another time, friends,” Governor Barsid interjected. He gestured to a pair of overstuffed chairs by the fire. “Please, have a seat. There you go. Are you warm enough? Can I offer you anything to drink: coffee, tea? Soporwine? Haha, I’m only joking. Neither of you looks the type.”

“You could answer a question for me, if you don’t mind,” Terezi said, fighting to avoid sinking into the depths of her chair.

“Of course, Miss Pyrope.”

“‘Governor’ seems a very lofty title for a town like this. How does one go about governing the ungovernable?”

Barsid leaned against the mantlepiece, a wistful expression on his face. “The title would be another joke. Unfortunately of the sort where I’m not sure if I’m being laughed _with_ or _at_. What no one tells you, on the night you set out to claw your way to the top, is that sometimes the only prize you win is first rights to all the blame whenever something goes wrong. And so, here I am, collecting my hard-won dues on a regular basis.”

“That doesn’t answer my question.”

“Carefully, Miss Pyrope. Delicately. As little as possible. You are no stranger to the criminal mind, yes? You will be well aware that it does not like being told what to do. As such I find myself serving as ad hoc auspistice for an entire town. I step in when it is better that cooler heads prevail and ensure that Port Ordred does not become one huge running gunfight. But not one second sooner.”

“Pretty good money in being a crimelord-auspistice, looks like,” Vriska said.

“I have my own enterprises, naturally. Nothing so crude as smuggling or slaving, ha ha, so Miss Pyrope will not be aware of them. Suffice it to say, chaos is good for business and, due in no small part to the efforts of you two, business is good.”

Terezi sat forward, after some struggling. “Chaos? So the Courtblock and the church...?”

Barsid chuckled to himself, ambled over to his desk, and poured himself a measure of liquor from a decanter. He raised the glass, as if toasting the demise of a hated foe. “The Cruelest Bar and its agents have been declared Utmost Wacknathema by his Most Absurdly Highness, the Grand High Blood. All legislacerators and initiates are now open season to any zealot wishing to get in their messiahs’ good books. One week ago, eight thousand cavalreapers were commanded to return to the capital to restore order. Instead, they broke dark season quarters and rode into the hills, refusing further orders until certain demands had been met. The force sent to bring them to heel killed their officers and went over to the rebels, as did the next one. Now there are twenty thousand heavily armed and impeccably trained trolls at large in the occupied territories, with unknown loyalties and intentions.”

Terezi slumped in her seat. “Alecto was right,” she said. “It’s all coming apart.”

“If we are done with our tangents, my friends, I will cut straight to the quick of the matter: you have need of letters of transit and marque, and I happen to be in possession of such articles for a ship matching the description you provided to our mutual acquaintance, Mister Gryggs. What shall we do about this?”

“What’s your asking price?” Vriska said.

“None. I’m afraid they are, aha, priceless.”

Terezi’s cane shot out and came to rest across Vriska’s lap, stopping her in the middle of rising from her chair. It didn’t take a nose as sensitive as Terezi’s to smell the murderous intent wafting off her associate. Vriska slowly removed her hand from inside her coat and sat back.

“Priceless,” Terezi said, “but not unacquirable. Unless you summoned us here to taunt us?”

“I do not taunt, Miss Pyrope. All I ask is that you two perform one small favor for me and I will give you these documents free of charge.”

“How small?” Vriska said. “You lose your hive keys and need help looking for them? Want us to shovel out your stable for you?”

“Slightly larger than all that. I find myself in need of... ringers, shall we say, to discharge certain duties necessary to protect the well-being of my town.”

“You want someone killed but your hands are tied and you can’t have your thugs seen doing it. Am I right?”

“You are indeed, Captain. The nuisance in question is, unfortunately, in cahoots with individuals who could make my position very tenuous. Were he to suddenly come a cropper, through no fault of my own of course, it would simplify things a great deal.”

“We are not assassins, Governor,” Terezi said.

“Is that a fact, Miss Pyrope? You carry the weapon of one; I can hear it rattle when you walk. Oh, do forgive me, I forgot. It isn’t murder if it’s done in the name of the law.”

Rage flared, hot and acidic in Terezi’s chest. “If you are insinuating that—”

“How do you feel about the term ‘vigilante,’ then? Would you care to know how our little nuisance earns his keep?” The look he fixed her with was not probing. It was _skewering_. “He is no killer, no slave-taker. He deals, instead, in information. Intelligence comes to him from port authorities all across the hemisphere — passenger ships, Sufferite refugee carriers, any vessel abundant in potential chattel and poor in defenses. He collates their destinations and courses, then sells them off to the highest bidder. Innocents, Miss Pyrope. He condemns them to die in slavery without even having the decency to witness his own crimes. Captain, I believe your ship’s mediculler was one of his victims. Or would have been, had you not intervened. What do you say?”

There was a long pause, the silence broken only by the sound of the fire.

“If this guy really did rat out Maryam and the rest of those jades, then I’d kill him for free,” Vriska said.

“Capital. And you, Miss Pyrope?”

Terezi slid her glasses off and spent a moment turning them over in her hands.

“I don’t think you give the tiniest fuck about these people your ‘nuisance’ harms, Governor. And I don’t appreciate you attempting to prey on my sensibilities,” she said.

“So you refuse?”

She let out a slow breath. “No. I’ll do it, but I want to know why you really want this man dead.”

Barsid set his glass on the mantle, took up a poker, and set to work stirring up the embers of the fire.

“Ordred will tolerate a great many sins, but playing patsy is not one of them. He has been passing information to the Cruelest Bar. It is my assumption that it is only a matter of time before that information comes to include navigational charts of Shipbreaker Bay. And after that?” He turned away from the fire, a small coal still glowing on the end of the poker. “We will join Vennah in the ash heap. Now, if we are all satisfied with the terms of our agreement, I believe we are done here for the moment. Murvad will provide you with further details."

They had almost reached the door when he added: “Actually... Captain Serket, may I speak with you for a moment. In private?”

* * *

 

 She rejoined Terezi shortly, outside the gates of the manorblock.

“What did he want?”

“To get a good look at my eye in the firelight.”

“Why?”

Vriska shrugged. “‘Cuz he’s a senile old man? I dunno.”

“That’s all?”

“Well, he also said that you’re a striking young woman and I’m very lucky.”

Terezi scoffed, even as she felt a flush of embarrassment climb her neck. “Oh come on.”

“No, seriously.”

“And what is that supposed to mean?”

“That’s what I said. He just laughed and said that youth is wasted on the young.”

There came a rattling as the Governor’s scuttlecoach was brought around to them. The bewigged woman who had collected them from the innblock, having appeared silently behind them, clapped a hand on each of their shoulders. “Shall we be off then? I understand you two got quite a job ahead of you. I'll fill you in back at your digs.”

"Murvad, I presume?" Terezi said, removing the woman's hand with the head of her cane.

"The one and only," Murvad replied with a wink.

“Where the fuck did you come from?” Vriska hissed.

“Well, when two trolls hate each other _very_ much...”

* * *

 

Enibal Barsid watched them go from the window of his study. Not alone, though. He had one more guest to see off before his business for the night was concluded. He didn’t turn around; he scarcely dared to breathe. His last guest was somewhat tetchy at the moment and it would be best not to do anything to get them excited.

“I see you’ve let yourself in again,” he said to the shadows.

There was no response.

“Some might find that rude,”

Silence.

“Not one much for repartee are you?”

An irritated noise at the back of a throat. Metal scraped on leather.

“Oh come now, no call for that. Your quarry will be making an appearance at the Hive of Blue Roses in the very near future. There should be adequate disruption for you to make a clean acquisition. Now be a dear and kindly get your stink out of my hive. I’ve held up my end of our bargain and would be pleased if I never had to see you again.”

More silence, but of a more empty sort. His guest had departed. He let out a breath and, with trembling hands, poured himself a large drink.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Heated Discourse was a ship of some note in the kind of circles that frequented Port Ordred. Specifically, her crew was known for being a pack of bushwhacking pricks, even by the standards of Ordred. No one really had any love for them, and very few were disappointed to hear that they'd been summarily smeared all over the walls by a pair of murderous madwomen. If Gryggs was surprised that they'd tried to rob aforementioned madwomen, this was probably due to him being slightly stupid and whacked out of his pan on shadeleaf the majority of the time.


	8. Gouge

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "You wish to be called righteous rather than act right."  
> \- Aeschylus

**Sweeps in the past...**

**But not many.**

Her heart thudded in her chest, beating a counterpoint to the pounding of her feet on the pavement. The chase was supposed to be thrilling, a joy in and of itself, but instead it just made her feel that she was going to drop dead. Perhaps this was her comeuppance for slacking on her physical drills.

Her lungs burned as she struggled to anticipate her quarry’s next move. He was fleeing away from the heart of the capital’s low-rent district, which limited the odds that he was heading towards reinforcements. If memory served, he would be running out of winding, narrow alleys shortly, making it much harder for him to lose her. Which meant that, assuming he knew all this and wasn’t just in a mad panic, he would be trying something decisive in a moment here.

A few blocks more and, sure enough, there he went — a sudden shifting of momentum sent his feet skidding on the wet flagstones. He turned and threw himself onto a pile of crates and went scrambling up towards the rooftops. She followed close on his heels, snorting and sniffing like a cholerbear the whole way. He would be waiting for her on the roof, probably with something heavy to drop on her head. She paused, crouched low just shy of the roof and drew her sword. She could smell him, his fear surrounding him like a foul mist. Carefully now... get a fix on him...

She planted a hand on the lip of the roof and vaulted herself over, swordstick flashing. A pot smashed on the roof, her prey staggered, nearly fell, regained his balance, and took off running again. He was slower now; not many people could maintain a decent turn of speed while trying to hold their arm on like that.

Hot pursuit carried her across the roofs of the city, over treacherous leaps between buildings, through clutters of hivestem chimneys. Tiles crunched and slid underfoot, nearly sending her into thin air on more than one occasion.

They were coming up on a larger gap now, where the buildings were separated by a sizable boulevard. Her quarry put on a burst of speed. Surely he wasn’t fool enough to try and leap that?

Rattling in the street below — scuttlewagons, loaded with goods bound for the docks. Aha, so that was his game. If he managed to drop into one of those, he would be lost to her. Even if she managed to keep pace with the haulers he could ditch her among the wharves at the end of their journey. She couldn’t allow that.

She slowed to a halt, took her sword in an underhand grip, reared back like a javelineer and hurled it. The weapon spiraled beautifully despite not being made for such applications, arcing through the air to—

**Sweeps in the future...**

**In a circumstantially simultaneous context.**

—impale her quarry’s back. He stumbled a few more feet, then folded up without a sound and sank to the planks that made up the streets of Port Ordred. Governor Barsid’s little “nuisance” had been dealt with.

She should have felt some sense of accomplishment, or satisfaction, or anything at all.

Instead she felt nothing. Just another dead troll, his crimes already committed. Throw him on the pile.

* * *

 

**We’ve gotten ahead of ourselves. Let’s back up a bit.**

**Nights in the past...**

“Here’s a picture of your guy, name’s unimportant. Name is mud as far as we’re concerned,” Murvad said, holding up a small sketched portrait of the target. “He’s currently cooped up in the Hive of Blue Roses, on the north end of town. Never comes out, seems to have developed a touch of agoraphobia. Can’t imagine why, it’s not as if he’s a dead troll walking or anything. He wears a signet ring, that’ll be your proof of the deed.”

Terezi gave the crude sketch of the man a good long lick.

“Okay, gross?” Murvad said.

“You should see what she does to books,” Vriska said. “They end up looking like a barkbeast has been at them.”

He was a clean-cut sort, more suited to working deep in the imperial bureaucracy than out of a den of iniquity. A pair of pince-nez balanced delicately on his nose.

“I assume he’s being guarded,” Terezi said, setting the sketch down.

“Of course. The guys who run the Blue Roses have their own little army, thirty or forty strong. Seasoned, too. Not like those like those pissant throatcutters from the _Heated Discourse_ that you two put down.”

Vriska whistled. “Damn. Where do they keep all that muscle?”

“It’s a big place, Captain. Three tavernblocks, a brothel, a money lender. Shit, they’ve even got stalls for vendors.”

Terezi cocked an eyebrow at her. “You’ve never been, Serket? I thought you instinctively gravitated towards places like that.”

“No... wait." Her eyes narrowed as she searched her memory. "I've been there once. I think. I remember getting reeeeeeeeally trashed.”

“Shocking. Tell me, are there any schematics of this place?”

Murvad scoffed. “What, do you think we keep track of things like that in this town? There might be, but I haven’t seen them.”

“That’s going to complicate the issue,” Terezi said. “I doubt they’ll let us poke around at our leisure.”

“Wish I could be of more help, ladies. Unfortunately I’m a known quantity and none too popular on that side of the island. If you want my opinion, the Governor’s doing you a little dirty by sending you into this with so few resources.”

“It’s just a bawdy hive,” Terezi said, “how hard could it be?”

"Did you seriously just say 'bawdy hive,' Pyrope? What century are you from?"

“Er, 'scuse me,” said a fourth voice from the innblock door. Gryggs slipped in and shut it behind him. “Didn’t mean to eavesdrop, begging your pardon, didn’t mean no offense, but I heard what you were talkin’ about and thought, uh, I could maybe be of some assistance?”

The other three occupants of the room stared at him.

“Of course, Gryggs,” Vriska said, “we’d be delighted to have you on board.” She faced Terezi and Murvad and threw her arms wide. “Thank God! And here we were just pondering what we would do if we happened to come across a titanic amount of blow that needed snorting!”

“That’s a good one. Very funny joke,” Gryggs said, shifting nervously from foot to foot. “But I‘m decent with a knife and—”

“So did you just happen to discover some charitable impulse lurking in that crappy little trash fire you call a soul? Hmm?” Vriska said.

“Well, that is to say, I‘m still needing to get paid for all this,” he muttered.

“Oh! Silly me, your finder’s fee! I nearly forgot! What a daffy bitch I am! Let’s see, twenty percent is your usual rate, but you wanted double, on account of ‘jumping through hoops,’ so forty percent... and we are paying how much, Pyrope?”

“Nothing,” Terezi said. She was only half paying attention to Vriska. An idea was jumping up and down in the back of her head, waving its arms to get her attention.

“Right, nothing. So Gryggs gets forty percent of nothing, which is...?” she held her hands out to him, palms up, and waggled her fingers.

“Nothin’,” he said, glumly.

“Correct! Now why don’t you turn around and go stick your face somewhere else besides in mine before I get really pissed off?”

Something clicked in Terezi’s head. She shouldered Vriska aside. “Mister Gryggs! Not one more step towards that door, if you please!” Gryggs froze in mid-stride, one foot slightly off the floor. Terezi walked around in front of him and slid her glasses off.

“You’re a dissolute little so-and-so, yes?” she said. “Spend a lot of time in squalid pits like the Blue Roses?”

Gryggs gawped for a moment and desperately tried to look anywhere but at her eyes. “Yes ma’am, extremely dissolute. Regular wetpan, me. Got me own barstool at the Roses, you bet.”

“And I imagine that during your tenure as a dissolute waste, serial collaborator and accomplice, you have accumulated a few individuals within the administration of the Blue Roses who might tolerate you more than most? Who might not mind so very much if dear old Gryggsy, who tips so well and is so good for a laugh, wanders around in parts of the establishment in which the clientele are not necessarily meant to be?”

The dim light of comprehension flickered to life in Gryggs’ expression. “Yeah... yeah! I‘m the life of the damn party up there. They even let me in on the card games down in the undercroft a few times. You want I should case the joint?”

“You would have my eternal gratitude.”

“Gratitude? I mean, that’s nice and all, but—”

“Fifteen hundred caegars, final offer. Say yes without haggling like a good boy and I’ll keep my glasses on next time.”

“Fifteen hundred, Pyrope? God’s fangs, are you—”

“Be quiet, Serket. I’m working. Yes or no, Mister Gryggs?”

“You got yourself a deal, miss,” Gryggs said.

The door banged shut behind him. Terezi turned and smiled triumphantly.

“What did I tell you, Serket? _End to end_!”

“Y’know what? I changed my mind,” Murvad said, “I don’t feel sorry for you guys anymore. ”

* * *

 

**Sweeps in the past...**

**On a roof in the imperial capital.**

She felt detached from the world, standing there next to the body of her suspect, like all her senses were being related to her second-hand. Somehow, she’d imagined something more... vindicating.

A footstep crunched on the slates behind her and a voice said, “Well done, initiate. An unconventional take down, but the results speak for themselves.”

Barristerror Alecto struck a match on a chimney and lit the lantern she carried with her. She set it one the surface of the roof and knelt by the body, studying it with an appraising air.

“While live capture is generally preferable, of course, I assume you had your reasons.”

“I judged the possibility of escape was too great,” Terezi heard herself say. “‘Better an occupied gibbet than an empty noose.’”

“Felbrief’s _Res Gestae_ treatise, yes?”

“Yes, Barristerror.”

“I always found him very staid and overly fond of aphorism.”

“His underlying theory is solid. And, to be honest, I find the dorky aphorisms kind of endearing.”

“To each their own,” Alecto stood. “How does it feel?”

“Pardon, Barristerror?”

“Your first successful commission.”

Terezi hesitated. Lying would be ill-advised.

“Strange.”

“Hm. Was this your first time killing someone?”

It was a very blunt question, bordering on inappropriate.

“No, Barristerror. Just different from what I’m used to.”

She had killed before, but in all those instances her opponents had been the ones to press the issue. More importantly, none of them had been running away from her at the time.

Alecto considered her answer, then nodded and slowly walked to the edge of the roof where she peered down at the streets of the capital in a proprietorial fashion.

“While I will not condemn enthusiasm,” she said, “I’ve found that those who take too quickly to the act of killing, or derive untoward enjoyment from it, tend to misunderstand the purpose of our labors. Apprehension and execution are not ends unto themselves, initiate. They are means to an end — upholding the law. Those who lose themselves in the thrill of the hunt or the satisfaction that comes from a kill, in turn, lose sight of this. Tell me, what does the phrase ‘the law’ mean to you?”

Now this question was just insulting. It was the kind of thing you posed to a bunch of trembling first sweeps who didn’t yet know the flop sweat soaked agony of a real all-dayer.

“Felbrief defines the body of law as—” Terezi began.

“No. What does it mean to _you_?”

“A body of precepts as defined by collective perception of public necessity and mores, interpreted through review and—”

Alecto rolled her eyes heavenward. “God save me from overachievers. Less clinically, initiate. Have you no poetry in you? Surely you must have taken one fine art or literature elective?”

She had. But she had also quickly learned that musclebeasts were not her thing, and that the great literary masters clearly didn’t know when to cut to the good parts. Somewhere in her respiteblock was a compendium of classical romantic tragedies, its pages stuck together and its margins filled with scribbled notes along the lines of _BL4R! JUST FUCK ALR34DY!!_

“Guidance,” she said after some thought. “A means by which we divine our course in a chaotic world.”

“I see,” Alecto said. She stepped away from the edge of the roof and looked Terezi over. It was as if she was being weighed in a balance, as if something inside her was being assayed.

“Would you care to know how I view the law?” Alecto said, satisfied with whatever she had observed.

Terezi nodded.

“As a circle of firelight in the middle of a dark and vast wood, beyond which things move in the shadows. They hunger, but are momentarily kept at bay by the fire. We are all called to serve, initiate. Some of us by duty, others by example. Should you pass your dissertation defense, your duty will be to keep that fire burning, no matter how many examples must be made. If you continue to feel discomfort with what is asked of you in pursuance of this duty, only remember this: there is no act so cruel or so brutal that it is not a kindness compared to what will happen if we allow the fire to go out and the things that move beyond its light to come in.”

Alecto was not a popular choice for dissertation advisor. Most initiates lived in quiet fear of her. Even full legislacerators found her disconcerting at times. Terezi was beginning to understand where they were coming from.

“You are dismissed. Get some rest. Expect a full review of your performance by the end of the week.” The corner of Alecto’s mouth twitched; it was the closest she ever came to smiling. “Although, if you will allow me to spoil the surprise, I believe you’ve earned full marks.”

That day, Terezi dreamed of pursuing a fleeing figure down a forest path, from either side of which there came the sounds of unseen beasts crashing through the undergrowth.

* * *

 

**Sweeps in the future...**

Gryggs’ hastily scrawled maps of the place and jabbered descriptions didn’t do it justice. The Hive of Blue Roses had no such plant growing in its premises; the air that made up its atmosphere would have slain any vegetation inside of an hour. It nearly slew Terezi within a few feet of the front door. Her nose threatened to shut down in protest and her tongue immediately assumed the texture of dried meat as her mouth desiccated itself. Smoke was a prominent feature — from cookery, hookahs, pipes, but mostly from the huge fire pits that dominated the middle of the central courtyard. The worst part, perceptible only to Terezi, was the sensation that the air she was breathing had been recycled three or four times already through individuals who were quite possibly _too detestable_ to hang. Their necks would have corroded the rope.

The place was to Port Ordred, she mused, what Port Ordred was to the rest of the world.

The Blue Roses was more of an open-air bazaar than a building, three stories tall, with all the establishments that made up its carnival opening onto the courtyard. Above, a series of overlapping canopies made up the roof, to let the smoke trickle out in its own time while also ensuring that not even the light season could put a stop to business. Even without internal walls, the place was jammed nearly solid with patrons. Navigating from one end to the other required planning, brisk application of the elbows, and a high tolerance for having elbows applied back. And yet, the whole thing failed to explode. No one was killing each other, fights were limited to posturing and snarled _you lookin’ at me?_ exchanges that inevitably ended with all participants slinking back to their parties to grouse about the little cluckbeastshit they’d almost had to wallop.

“The crushers,” Gryggs had said, “don’t tolerate people actin’ the fool.”

There were a few of these crushers scattered throughout the premises — huge trolls, mingling with and scanning the crowd for any signs of trouble. Many trolls in Port Ordred went forth heavily armed; one could hardly be called fully dressed without at least three weapons plainly visible at all times. The crushers, on the other hand, managed to appear heavily armed with only truncheons hanging from their hips. We aren’t going to have a problem, their attitudes said, because there is nothing you can do that would pose a problem for me.

Vriska cleared a spot for them at one of the bars that ringed the periphery with a warm smile and a subtle mental command that sent a pair of trolls scrambling for safer ground. She threw herself into a slouch on the stool, her back resting against the bar, sprawling to take up as much space as possible. Some sort of display of dominance, no doubt. Terezi sat next to her, by contrast attempting to come in contact with as little of her surroundings as possible in case they were contagious.

“Your assessment?” Vriska said from under the brim of her hat.

“I think you’re proposing to walk into the world’s biggest powder magazine with a lit torch,” Terezi replied.

“You asked for a distraction and I intend to give you one.”

“You’ll be killed. If some drunk doesn’t open you up with a broken bottle, the security will get you.”

Vriska tipped her hat back with a thumb. She looked almost mischievous, like a wiggler in on a wonderful prank.

“The crushers don’t scare me. I’ve seen their kind before. Buncha stoic badasses who think knocking a few heads together constitutes a punch-up. They’re gonna get a crash course in shit getting real tonight.”

According to Gryggs, their target was hiding out in an office in the Blue Roses’ undercroft. Through a door in the back, down two flights of stairs, past the guard room.

“It’ll be loaded with crushers,” he had said, “only a few of them are walkin’ the rounds at any given time.”

Barging in with weapons drawn was a losing proposition. The crushers would have to be drawn off enough to allow someone to slip in unnoticed and put paid to their target. The assignment of roles was obvious — Vriska wasn’t the slipping type, and Terezi wasn’t the diversionary type.

The bartender hustled up. Vriska held up two fingers. The bartender hustled off again and returned with a couple of heavy ceramic cups a bottle of something pitch black.

“Leave the bottle and go away,” Vriska said, dropping a coin on the bar. She poured out the liquor, a thick molasses-smelling liquid, and held out a cup to Terezi, who shook her head.

“You caught a whiff of that table in the corner by the door, right?” she said after she had polished off both cups.

“Seadwellers,” Terezi said. “Very neat, despite their attempts to look otherwise. Shiny boots. Not a whisper of stubble on the men.”

“Aquassailants,” Vriska said. “God damn but is there anything sadder than waders trying to be sneaky? They think ‘discreet’ means leaving their butler at home.”

“Alecto is here.”

“With Ampora’s freak. I knew I felt something off. We’ve been set up.”

Terezi shook her head again. “No, this is all too complicated for a mere double-cross. The Governor could have handed us over to her at any time if that were the case. I think something else is at play here.”

“No way out but forward.” Vriska refilled one of the cups. “We do the job we came to do, we get out, we hope it doesn’t get too much more complicated. Easy as falling off a log.”

The incognito aquassailants rose from their seats and headed for the door.

“We need to hurry. Complications will be inbound shortly,” Terezi said.

Vriska drained her cup and, with a small flourish, set it upside-down on the bar. A few nearby patrons took notice and edged away from her. The bartender pinched the bridge of his nose and started taking bottles down from behind the bar.

“You might want to fade away,” she said, nodding at the cup. “I’ve just told everyone in the building that I think I can kick their asses.”

“You still owe me that dinner you promised, so try not to die.”

Vriska laughed. “In a bar brawl? As if. I could do this—”

“In your sleep?”

Vriska winked at her.

“You know it. I’ll follow you when it looks like everything up here is sorted. Just look after your own ass.”

As Terezi vanished into the crowd, she could only just hear Vriska add, “It’s a really nice ass.”

Even with the Blue Roses as crowded as it was, it took Terezi only a few moments to find her way to the periphery near the entrance to the undercrofts. The press was less dense here, distant as it was from anything of interest to the average customer. From here, she observed the situation as it developed.

A troll nearly as wide as they were tall had taken offense at Vriska’s gesture and was looming over her. Several more moved in from the sides, cracking their knuckles in preparation to register some serious complaints. The seagrift cocked her head to one side and made a comment that propelled her new pals to entirely new heights of fury. The first troll drew their sword, a big ugly piece of work, and started waving it around to punctuate their threats. The crowd near the dispute retreated to give everyone a nice, open space to settle their disagreement. A pair of crushers were already making their way over, but their progress was hampered by the number of trolls between them and the incipient fight.

Vriska stretched languidly, then suddenly sprang forward to bring the bottle of black liquor smashing down across the first trolls head. They staggered back and, helped along with a kick from Vriska, fell through a table. Drinks spilled, the occupants rose from their seats. The trolls on either side of Vriska caught a barstool alongside the ear and toppled over the bar. More weapons were drawn. Tempers flared. Aggressive tendencies looked for an outlet. A crusher trod on someone’s foot. A punch was thrown. A truncheon rose to strike.

The situation rested on a knife’s edge. All it needed was a nudge in the right, or wrong, direction.

Vriska instead decided to throw it screaming over a cliff.

She hopped on top of the bar, doffed her hat to the room at large and shouted “Captain Serket cordially invites all of you mewling wusses to _come fucking get some!_ ”

Lost in the ensuing ruckus was the sound of Terezi slapping her forehead hard enough to leave a mark.

* * *

 

**Sweeps in the past...**

It was, by most metrics, a completely normal bench. It had no special properties, save one — it stood beside the door to lectureblock 13, the chamber used for dissertation defenses by the schoolfeeding faculty of the Cruelest Bar. This alone was enough to earn it the appellation of the Mercy Seat. It was here that generations of initiates had waited to learn whether or not they were destined to become neophytes. And while many, the majority even, would, the possibility of “or not” took on a very heavy reality to those who sat on the Mercy Seat.

Terezi Pyrope occupied it now, legs crossed and fingers drumming uneasily on the head of her cane. Her defense had gone acceptably; a few of the older members of the committee had perhaps balked a little at her work, but she had done her best to bring them around. She could hear them from behind the door now, encouraging little snatches of “impressively thorough” and “exceptional clarity” reached her ears. Then a barristerror by the name of Easmus, whom she loathed in that special kind of way that only a student can have for a teacher, cleared his throat and spoke in a voice that suggested the speaker thought the world was going deaf along with them.

“That’s all well and good, singularly clever girl and so forth, but I’m afraid I just don’t see her as Bar material.”

A chair banged as its occupant rose in haste.

“Explain yourself, sir.”

Alecto. Terezi cringed. _Oh God, please don’t let her blow this_ , she thought.

“Well, it’s just that... God’s fangs, the girl is blind.”

“I oversaw her practical assessments and she performed up to standards. If there is any handicap here, it falls on those who underestimate her.”

Easmus coughed. “Even ignoring that, something troubles me about her. I think it is possible, Lyssis, that your dearth of advisees has lead you to, ah, perhaps _overvalue—_ ”

Crosstalk erupted.

“Easmus, see here—”

“No, he’s right. She’s—”

“Oh, bosh. This is entirely unneccessary—”

Alecto’s voice cut acridly through the commotion. “Tell me, Easmus, how many of your initiates have gone on to distinguish themselves? The only one I can think of offhand is that idiot who got themselves killed trying to arrest a subjugglator.”

Another chair banged. “You whelp, how dare you! I’ll—”

“You’ll bloody well _what_ , you absurd fossil?”

Terezi, by now, had graduated from drumming on the head of her cane to chewing on it. A group of fellow initiates wandered past, glanced at the door, glanced at her, muttered “Yikes!” and kept walking.

Behind the door, another voice shouted “Silence!” Dekain, the senior barristerror on the committee, had heard enough.

“Sit down, both of you. Barristerror Easmus, your concerns are noted. Barristerror Alecto, if you don’t sheathe that sword _instanter_ I’ll have you put on sabbatical so quickly you’ll think you’ve been abducted. Now then, it is my opinion that Initiate Pyrope has performed above and beyond expectations. Setting aside concerns vis-à-vis intangible notions of what constitutes, quote, ‘Bar material,’ unquote, and focusing instead on the substance of her dissertation, _Easmus_ , would anyone care to dissent?”

Silence, possibly occupied by Alecto and Easmus glaring daggers at each other.

“So be it. For all intents and purposes, Initiate Pyrope is now Neophyte Pyrope. We are adjourned.”

The door opened and what followed she could only recollect as a blur. She remembered Dekain nodding curtly in passing, Easmus ignoring her, the rest disappearing into an undifferentiated mass of congratulations, all the while her thoughts were drowned out by two words that kept bouncing back and forth from one side of her thinkpan to the other.

Neophyte Pyrope.

She liked the sound of that.

“You mustn’t allow Easmus and his ilk to deter you,” Alecto’s voice brought her back to reality some time later, in her office. There was a glass of champagne in Terezi’s hand; she had no memory of accepting it. “They are terrified of anything that doesn’t remind them of themselves, and if they had their way the Bar would have ossified centuries ago. We’d still be allowing highbloods trials by ordeal. Hah. As if caste or martial prowess can defer guilt.”

“They are not the future of this institution, neophyte. Not Easmus, not Dekain, nor Kurgos, nor Isemea, nor myself. You are. And I’m sure you’d rather be out celebrating than sitting in this stuffy old room listening to a stuffy old woman, so I will limit myself simply to passing on what my advisor said to me when I was in your position. Waver not, for we are all in your hands now. Congratulations, Terezi. I will see you at commencement.”

* * *

 

**Sweeps in the future...**

A whistle blew from within the melee; the crushers were calling in the cavalreapery. The door to the undercroft was thrown open and reinforcements began piling out. They waded into the press, swinging their truncheons with abandon. On the far side of the room, Vriska dodged nimbly between fighting trolls, administering a few blows here and there in passing to help curate the situation, then darting away just ahead of reprisal. She lead a trio of crushers in a merry chase around the room through, around, and sometimes over the brawl, running from shoulder to shoulder, cackling wildly the whole time like some scruffy trickster goddess descended to Alternia.

At least someone was having fun.

With the crushers distracted, there was no one to stop Terezi from slipping through the door to the undercrofts and down the narrow staircase behind it. At the bottom, she found herself in a stone corridor, dimly lit by a few flickering torches, that put her in mind of the fort at Vennah. Far older, though; it could very well have dated back to the nights of the gamblignants, or even further back to when Ordred was a mere smuggler’s cove. Water dripped in the darkness and something scurried away from her feet as she slowly crept down the corridor.

She passed the door to the empty guard room, wherein she could hear an abandoned kettle whistling on the stove. According to Gryggs’ floorplan, she needed to take a left at the intersection ahead and then Mr. Pince-nez’s hidey-hole would be the door at the end.

She paused at the intersection, pressed to the wall, listening for any straggling crushers. While she waited, her mind fell into old routines and began passively mapping out possible future scenarios. Down the passage to the right she could hear the distant crash of surf. Gryggs claimed that there was nothing that way but cellars and, at the end, what had once been a small dock projecting from a bluff, used for offloading ill-gotten gains. No use as an escape vector; he’d be battered to death on the rocks.

Straight ahead, however, there was another exit into the alley out back of the Blue Roses, barred from the inside. Should he manage to evade her, that would be where he headed. 

Another pause outside the door to his lair. No need to rush, she had him trapped. Plenty of time to think about how to play this. There was always the neophyte method — kick in the door and bellow _right then, you’re nicked_ _!_  Tried, true, and responsible for many abruptly truncated careers. She could try waiting for him to get audibly distracted and then silently open the door and end him with one stab. Of course, there were way too many variables that had to line up just right for that to go off without a hitch. Part of her wondered if it would be as easy as knocking on the door and then slamming it into him when he went to answer it, leaving him incapacitated for easy elimination.

Or she could wait for him to walk around the corner on his way back from making tea in the guard room and almost plow into her. Which turned out to be the one that happened.

 _You know_ , a particularly shitty portion of herself piped up, _just because you know where a suspect is_ supposed _to be doesn’t mean they’re going to necessarily be there. Honestly, this is 110 level stuff. Are you sure you passed the Bar?_

His teacup shattered on the stone floor. “Who are you?” he said. “Are you a sc-, a legislacerator? Did the Barristerror send you?”

Terezi’s sword shone in the light of the torches.

“She said I wasn’t to be harmed!”

Terezi took a step forward. Mr. Pince-nez took a step back.

“Did she?” Terezi hissed.

“I gave her what she wanted! You can’t do this!”

Another step forward, another step back. Every sinew of his body screamed with the instinct to flee, tempered by the instinct to not get stabbed in the back.

“Oh, but I can.”

“What law have I broken?”

“This stopped being about the law a long time ago.”

She lunged and the point of her swordstick caught his arm as he flung himself aside. He took to his heels, pounding down the corridor as fast as his legs would carry him. Terezi followed close behind as he scrambled up the stairs leading to the alley, threw aside the bar across the door, and fled into the night.

He had almost reached the mouth of the alley when Terezi took her sword in an underhand grip, reared back like a javlineer, and let fly. The weapon spiraled beautifully despite not being made for such applications, arcing through the air to impale her quarry’s back. He stumbled a few more feet, then folded up without a sound and sank to the planks that made up the streets of Port Ordred. Governor Barsid’s little “nuisance” had been dealt with.

She should have felt some sense of accomplishment, or satisfaction, or anything at all.

Instead she felt nothing. Just another dead troll, his crimes already committed. Throw him on the pile.

* * *

 

 **We appear to have caught up with ourselves.** **Let us continue in a more linear manner.**

**Here, in the present...**

Vriska joined her shortly thereafter, little worse for wear. Terezi was beginning to think that the woman could take a stroll through hell and come out the other side smiling.

“Hey,” Vriska said, “this the guy?” She nudged the corpse with the toe of her boot.

Terezi said nothing, instead busying herself with prying the signet ring from Mr. Pince-nez’s cold finger.

“Oh man, don’t tell me you’re torn up over this asshole too? You really need to stop letting this stuff get to you.”

Terezi wanted to snap at her, to shout that not everyone could go through life like a walking siege weapon, but she also considered that Serket may have had a point. Had she really lost her way so badly that even a righteous execution like this one left her feeling hollow? It was just, it was deserved, so what was the problem?

Maybe there was something wrong with her.

“How do you do it, Serket?” she said, her voice distant.

“Do what?”

“Live so heedlessly. You don’t seem to be encumbered by anything resembling doubt or regret.”

“I dunno. Guess I just keep moving and hope nothing catches up with me,” she said. She shoved her hands in the pockets of her coat and hunched her shoulders, as though caught in a cold wind. “Can we not talk about this right now? They’re gonna figure out something is up soon and I’d prefer to be far away when they do.”

They exited the alley a into small and surprisingly kempt courtyard. A smattering of gargoyle statues, little more than darker patches of darkness against the stars, watched silently from the surrounding rooftops as they got their bearings. While Ordred’s back streets were not the maze of Vennah, the slapdash layout of the town made it easy to get turned around.

After some time spent winding through the narrows, they emerged onto a wider avenue, terminating in a dead end in one direction, to find it deserted. This in and of itself was alarming, as Ordred’s inhabitants understood the idea of curfews as something that happened to other people, but not nearly as alarming as the bodies. They had walked into the scene of a massacre. Aquassailants in their best approximations of unassuming street clothing lay in heaps or against the wall that marked the end of the street, many with weapons still loaded or sheathed. Blank eyes stared unseeing at the sky.

“God’s fangs,” Vriska muttered as they carefully approached the carnage. Something clattered and spun away from her foot. She bent over and lifted, between thumb and forefinger, like she was handling something distasteful, the headgear of Alecto’s adjutant. A few rags of flesh still clung to it; the rest of him was nowhere to be found. “The hell happened here? You think the Governor decided to send some backup?”

“No,” Terezi said sharply. “This work is too clean for a bunch of henchtrolls.”

She knelt by the bodies, inspecting them.

“Stab wounds, from a dagger or short sword. There’s lots of open ground to cover on the approach up the street and they had a wall at their backs, but whatever killed them managed to catch them completely off guard in close quarters. It could have jumped out of an alley at them, but that seems...” She trailed off, her attention drawn upwards, to the rooftops.

“It fell on them from above,” she said. Her palms itched furiously. “They were formed up in preparation to move out in search of us, and it dropped down in their midst and wiped them out in the time it takes to draw a sword.”

“You keep saying ‘it,’ as in singular.”

“I can only think of a few things that can do this kind of damage. None of them work in groups, and none of them are going to want to be our friends. Let’s not hang around.”

Which was when Alecto stepped out of a side street, standing between them and any hope of escape. She looked briefly incredulous, surprised to see them as much as they were to see her, but only briefly.

“This certainly simplifies the issue,” she said. “Although I must confess to being vexed at having underestimated you again, Terezi. I thought for certain that I brought sufficient force this time. And it is a pity that drawing you out required the sacrifice of a valuable contact, but what are assets for if not to be expended?”

Vriska went for her flintlocks. Terezi put a hand on her shoulder. “Don’t,” she whispered.

“Why not? I can drop her from here with one shot.”

“Are you sure about that?”

“Even if I can’t, it’s two on one and she’s gonna have to pull punches so she doesn’t kill us by accident. Those are good odds.”

“No, they aren’t. She didn’t get to be as old as she is by not knowing what she’s doing.”

Alecto stopped a few yards from them.

“I don’t suppose I can prevail upon you to see reason, Terezi?” she said.

“The instant you start speaking reason, I’ll consider it,” Terezi replied.

“So you are dead set on this madness then.” Alecto shook her head. “It pains me to have to do this, you know. I had such high expectations, saw such promise in you. I never thought I’d live to see you prove Easmus right in his misgivings.”

“I never asked for you to put such faith in me.”

“And yet you inspired it!” Alecto shouted. “Were you a wastrel this would be so much easier, but instead you squander incredible aptitude by associating with schismatics that you ought to be eliminating. You turn your back on an ancient and grand institution in favor of corruption and chaos. You walk in the company of, of _this_ ,” she gestured at Vriska and spat, “who I can only imagine is filling your head with the worst kind of diseased deviance. What do you think you’ve accomplished with this flight of selfish fancy, you fool girl? Thousands will die because of your brazen dereliction of your responsibilities to the Empire.”

Despite herself, Terezi sagged. She was torn between outrage and miserable acceptance of Alecto’s words. She had acted rashly, caused so much damage in her wake. What had she done?

“Shut up, you hag!” Vriska shouted back as she stepped in front of Terezi. “You can’t talk to her like that!”

Alecto leveled a glare at her that could have bored a hole in solid stone. “This does not concern you, vermin.”

“She isn’t your fucking pet! You can’t treat her like she’s defective just because she won’t do tricks for you anymore!”

“I wouldn’t expect a seagrift to have any understanding of duty—”

“Oh, duty! Duuuuuuuuty. Responsibility. Expectations. Pretty little chains to wrap someone in. Thousands ain’t gonna die because of her, don’t you _dare_ put that on her shoulders! They’re gonna die ‘cuz your Empire’s rotting where it stands, if one woman can knock the whole fucking thing over by herself. She’s told me about what you and your precious _duty_ made her do, and y’know what? If she can make a decision to stop buying your line of bullshit, that it was all necessary to keep this rotten place going for one more night, then she’s got more strength in her than all you other screws put together.”

Terezi was stunned, her self-recrimination forgotten. Had Vriska Serket, with all her omni-directional contempt for everything in creation save herself, just stood up for her? If Karkat’s display on the _Incarnadine_ had left her baffled by its reception, this left her feeling like her legs had been kicked out from under her.

Alecto continued staring.

“A fine speech, for vermin. May I offer a rebuttal?” she said at last.

There came a rush of motion from all present. Vriska’s pistol fired, missing Alecto by a hair’s breadth. She cried out as Alecto’s sword, moving faster than it had any right to, gashed her arm from wrist to elbow. Terezi’s blade shot out to turn Alecto’s as it came arcing back around towards Vriska’s face. Alecto’s elbow slammed into Terezi’s nose, not hard enough to break the bone but enough to bring tears to her eyes and fill her head with a blinding haze of pain. Vriska’s pistol, held by the scalding barrel like a club, caught Alecto across the jaw. A blind swing from Terezi took a notch out of Alecto’s leg, spilling teal across Ordred’s streets.

What ensued was no less a brawl than what had taken place at Hive of the Blue Roses. Swords sang out and notched as they bit ravenously at each other, at flesh, at bone. The two fought Alecto with fury born from desperation on Terezi’s part and simple white-hot rage on Vriska’s, and Alecto replied in kind, matching them both blow for blow. There was no art here, no room for guile or panache, just an ugly, primal struggle.

Melee gave way to a lull as the combatants broke off for a moment of respite and circled each other warily. Terezi dragged the back of her hand across her mouth to wipe away some of the blood oozing from her nose. Everything ached and sharp jolts of pain accompanied her every move. Vriska wasn’t in much better shape — a swathe of cerulean ran from a wound on her forehead and blotches of it stained her undershirt. They were both nearly spent. And Alecto, though injured in equal measure, stood as straight and dreadful as ever.

Small bells tinkled delicately on the wind.

Terezi’s head snapped up. She knew that sound. She had hoped she’d never hear that sound again. She had _daymares_ about that sound. Because there was only one thing she could associate with that sound. She scanned the rooftops as best she could while also keeping track of Alecto.

One of the gargoyles from out back of the Blue Roses had followed them. The breeze picked up and the bells chimed merrily again.

Terezi froze.

“Even if you evade me now, do you think you can run forever, Terezi?” Alecto said, oblivious to the horror that lurked just above. “There is no sanctuary from the law.”

Vriska had noticed the gargoyle now. She squinted at it and muttered “The hell?”

Tipping slowly forward from where it was perched, it fell from the roof, tumbling and unfolding in mid-air into a long limbed figure clad in motley. It landed in between the three trolls, silent but for the bells that adorned its clothing. Slowly, conscious of its audience, it straightened up, then dipped into a low theatrical bow.

Terezi had only ever seen its kind once before, during a brief stint as a Courtblock attaché to the church, and that had been enough to last her entire life. Maybe Alecto hadn't heard the bells, or maybe she'd learned not to hear them.

“No!” Alecto roared, jabbing a finger at the new arrival. “They are mine! You are out of your jurisdiction!”

A low chuckle emanated from its throat. Its voice was soft and lyrical.

“Their reckoning will come in due time, oh weaver of empty words and speaker of dead tongues. But it is not them that I come to claim. It is mother fucking _you_.”

Alecto went pale. She took an unsteady step back, her sword held out in front of her like a ward against evil.

“Not now,” she said, voice trembling. “My duty remains unfinished. Oh God, not now!”

A pair of daggers appeared in its hands.

“Fear not, weaver! A higher duty calls you now — the sacred charge of anointing the walls of the Most Mirthful! For so great is Their whimsy, that in such service even sins as grievous as yours may be washed away.”

Terezi caught Vriska by the arm and started to pull her away.

“Run,” she said. “Don’t look back, don’t stop for anything, don’t argue, just run.”

Alecto’s cry of rage and despair followed at their heels.

* * *

 

They ran until they dropped, falling to hands and knees in an alley sheltered by tattered sheets of sailcloth that served as an impromptu privacy screen for the respiteblocks that overlooked it.

“What,” Vriska said between ragged breaths, “the fuck. Was that?!”

“Eccsleaziarchy laughssassin,” Terezi replied. She propped herself up against the alley wall and tried her best to not pass out. “The church’s executioners.”

“And how, in the name of the Handmaid’s _fantastic fucking rack_ , did it sneak up on us? Even if you didn’t smell it, I should have been able to feel its mind.”

Terezi hesitated. She had very little understanding of how the highbloods’ powers, which they called chucklevoodoos, worked or what the extent of their abilities was. All she knew for certain was that, when brought to bear, they could do awful things.

“Magic,” she said, not feeling up to fumbling her way through an explanation.

“Magic’s not real, dumbass.”

“A sweep ago I would have told you the same about the gamblignants, and yet...”

“Okay, fine. Magic clowns. I’ll buy it. Stupider stuff has happened, albeit not often.” She looked down at herself and made a face. “Man, that screw ruined my coat. I liked this coat.”

“I’m sure you’ll survive.”

“I’ll tell you what I’m gonna do — I’m gonna beat the Governor until a new coat comes out. He’s behind this, I know it.”

“More likely that not. While a backstabbing undeniably just took place, I’m unsure if it was one back in particular or if the Governor decided to start handing them out like cheap tobacco flutes.”

“That smarmy bilgesucker. Expect me to believe that there could be,” she starting ticking items off on her fingers, “a legislacerator, a cadre of tyriancoats, _and_ a magic murderclown running around the port without his knowledge? Yeah, sure. He threw us to the howlbeasts with a big grin on his face. We should end his ass. I mean, if you’re up for it. I know you got feelings on this sort of thing.”

Terezi sucked her teeth. The moral calculus did itself, really — she had been used like a disposable implement, or at very least been used with a callous disregard for her wellbeing. Justice didn’t enter into it, this was personal.

She got to her feet. “I am always up for a little payback.”

Vriska smiled and held out a fist to her. “My girl.”

Terezi left her hanging.

* * *

 

They returned to the Governor’s manorblock, fully expecting to be denied entrance, anticipating a fight. Instead, the gate was opened for them and they were waved through without so much as a second look. Terezi found herself wondering if she shouldn’t ask one of Barsid’s bodyguards, _you do know we’re here to kill your boss, right?_ She kept her mouth shut, though, and followed close behind Vriska as she stormed through the empty halls towards the study.

They found Governor Barsid at his desk, hands folded on top of it as if he had been waiting patiently for them to show up. No sooner had the doors closed than a flintlock was in Vriska’s hand, aimed squarely between his eyes.

“Miss Pyrope, Captain Serket, how glad I am to see you safe and—”

“You piece of shit,” Vriska snarled as she walked around his desk to place the muzzle of her gun against his forehead. “You sniveling little cowardly fuck. You sold us out.”

“That is a rank mischaracterization, Captain. I did not ‘sell you out,’ rather I used you as bait.”

Terezi took a seat on the edge of his desk. “So instead, you merely manipulated us and sent us into danger to further your own ends. The accused does himself no favors on the stand.”

“A fair assessment. I would have preferred not to do so, but you must understand that the Eccsleaziarchy are not patient people. The legislacerator was obstinately refusing to reveal herself and I dare say that laughssassin was very near to considering my head a suitable substitute for hers.”

“The Governor of Port Ordred playing patsy to the clowns.” Terezi gave him the full benefit of her most predatory grin. “You’re a hypocrite on top of everything else.”

Barsid shrugged. “As your kind are so fond of saying, ‘serve by duty or by example.’ My duty is to ensure that an example is not made of my town.”

“That’s touching,” Vriska said, thumbing back the hammer on her pistol.

“Miss Pyrope are you really going let this happen? Would you call this a just act?”

“Governor, I have already warned you once about trying to yank my chain like that. The only reason I don’t have a sword at your throat is because it strikes me as redundant.”

“Very well. Go on then, Captain. What are you waiting for?”

A look of uncertainty crossed Vriska’s face. “You’re just gonna sit there and let me blow your pan out? Not even gonna call for your heavies?”

“Why would I?”

“Seems like the logical next step in the progression of events we got going here.”

“I could call for help, but then you would pull the trigger and all I would have gained is an undignified death.”

“I’m pulling the trigger anyway.”

“And my bodyguards will hear the shot and come running. Thus, regardless of what I do, I will be dead and you two will be... not in trouble necessarily, but certainly inconvenienced. Granted you could also run me through with a blade, making for a much quieter execution.”

“You’re very blasé for a man about to die,” Terezi said.

“I am an extremely old man, and I find that my age has left me jaded to the prospect of death. This isn’t my first dance, Miss Pyrope. It isn’t the first time I’ve been held at gunpoint. Nor,” he steepled his fingers, “is it the first time that a woman calling herself Captain Serket has been on the other end of the gun.”

Vriska lowered her pistol, seized the gvernor by the lapel with her free hand and yanked him to his feet.

“Is this a joke? ‘Cuz I ain’t laughing,” she hissed.

“Ah, you know of her.”

“Only rumors, stories. Tell me.”

“We would be here for nights. I’m going to reach for something. It isn’t a weapon, so do try not to take fright and shoot me.”

He slipped his finger under the chain hanging around his neck and lifted into view an irregularly-shaped golden disk about the size of a caegar piece. A coin, but not of any denomination that Terezi was familiar with, twisted slightly on the chain. Light from the fire flickered through the eight holes, seven arranged together in a hexagon and the eighth set apart, that had been punched cleanly through it. Barsid broke the chain with a sharp tug and let the coin fall into Vriska’s hand.

“What is this?” she said, turning it over in her fingers.

“ _Fealty_ ,” he replied. His face was positively glowing, a piratical gleam shone in his eye. “All of us that sailed with her swore a blood oath, each with one of those clenched in our cut palms, to follow her to the very gates of hell should she require it. In exchange, she brought us wealth and glory beyond measure. And now I am the last one. Would you send me to bring up the rear? Better late than never.”

Vriska was lost in contemplation of the coin. She held it up to the light, matching the holes to the pupils of her eye.

“What am I supposed to do with this?” she said.

“Whatever you please; it is yours by right. I knew from the moment I clapped eyes on you that you were her get — you’re the spitting image of her, it’s uncanny. So understand that if I sent you into danger, it was in the knowledge that you were equal to the task.”

“And this is all you have?

“All that I have in my possession. There is more to your inheritance, however. I hear tales that she left behind a hoard containing artifacts of great power, and a journal.”

“Where?”

“Beyond my reach, alas. Isla Racano.”

“Never heard of it.”

“Nor have I, outside of a few scant hints that it lies far to the west, beyond the Shahdom.”

"What was she doing out there?"

Barsid shook his head sadly. “The wind changed for ill, we were laid low by fire and sword and she left us to go into the west, from whence she never returned. But the wind changes once again. That which was thought tamed becomes wild again. The fires grow dim, letting the darkness of the crooked places between creep in. The decisions you make from here are yours alone, but remember that there comes a time when free trolls may again rule the waves and the world will have need of her once more.”

He turned to Terezi.

“And what of you, Miss Pyrope? I have no baubles to distract you with, unfortunately, so I find myself at your mercy. Do you still have designs on making me pay for my indiscretions?”

Terezi rubbed at her temple. She was tired, hurt all over, and still had trouble breathing out of one side of her nose. Payback would have been delightful on most nights, but right now, with Vriska apparently mollified and herself beginning to wonder if Barsid would be willing to make good on his previous offer of coffee, her heart just wasn’t in it anymore.

She settled for punching him in the stomach as hard as she could. Given the state she was in, it wasn’t as hard as she would have liked, but he had the good grace to sell it for her.

“You are a real asshole, Governor.” she said.

“There are many who share that view, Miss Pyrope,” he gasped as he staggered back to the chair behind his desk and fell into it. “Now, if you aren’t going to kill me, I believe you have a ring for me?”

Terezi pulled the late Mr. Pince-nez’s signet from her pocket and tossed it to him. He snatched it neatly out of mid-air.

“Excellent work. You may see yourselves out; Murvad will be waiting with your reward. Should you ever find yourselves in the neighborhood, I do hope you’ll stop by for a chat.”

* * *

 

They had been waiting for several minutes by the front gates of the manorblock when, as one, they drew their swords and spun to cross the blades at a spot that had a few seconds prior been empty space, but was now filled by Murvad.

She glanced down at the steel bracketing her neck. “So, bad night?”

“How long has the Governor been having us watched?” Terezi said.

“Since you showed up in Gerhae with Militant Vantas,” Murvad replied, edging back from the swords.

“That long? I think I would have noticed.”

“What can I say, I’m good at my job.”

“We don’t like being stalked,” Vriska said.

“Stalked?” Murvad laughed. “It’d be stupid to _not_ follow your exploits with great interest. You realize the next hundred sweeps of history are hinging on your actions? People are going to be arguing until the moon falls out of the sky about whether you’re the world’s worst villains or its greatest heroes. You got bigger things than me on your case — you’ve got posterity watching you, so you’d better dress to kill, ladies.”

She held out a thick leather envelope and a small wooden box.

“The Governor has thrown in a little bonus for your troubles, and since he figured you’d have some issues at the Iron Horn with your respective ocular arrangements.”

They sheathed their weapons and took the items, Vriska rifling through the envelope while Terezi opened the box. Inside were three small, thin glass lenses done up to look like eyes — two with teal irises and one solid red.

“They aren’t translucent unfortunately, but in your case, Miss Pyrope, that probably won’t be a problem. As for you, Captain, well, just learn to live without depth perception for a while. Try not to get hit in the face while you’re wearing them, that would be... bad.”

“Why’s mine red?” Vriska said.

“Regarding that, I’ve been told to say, quote, ‘you’ll figure it out, eventually. Just remember Isla Racano.’ Which is unhelpful, I know, but what are you gonna do, right? He's old and has a weird sense of humor. The scuttlecoach will be along shortly, so I guess I’ll be seeing you guys.”

“But will we see you, is the question.” Terezi said.

“If I want you to.”

* * *

 

They rode in silence for most of the way back into town, dozing and listening to the juddering of the wheels over Ordred’s shabby streets.

“This seems like a good time to remind you that you are still under contract to me, Serket,” Terezi said eventually.

Vriska stirred. “What? You think I’m gonna ditch you and run off to the opposite side of Alternia to look for a hoard that may or may not exist? You think I ain’t already followed a bunch of leads like that and found nothing?”

“You were considering it, though.”

A pause. “Yeah, kinda. This is the first time I’ve heard that my ancestor might have left behind a journal, though. Wouldn’t mind getting my hands on that.”

“What about the rest of what he said, that business about the world having need of her again? Do you find yourself suddenly inspired to get the gamblignants back together?”

Vriska snorted. “Sure, I’ll get right on that. Couldn’t get a room full of seagrift captains to agree on lunch, much less reinstating the Brethren Code. Maybe she would have been all about a hassle like that, but me? I got better shit to do with my time.”

Terezi smiled to herself. “The world has no idea how lucky it is that your fecklessness has overpowered your ambition, for the moment.”

“Ain’t fecklessness. I’m busy, already got enough irons in the fire. Solemn compact, all that,” Vriska said, then yawned and tipped her hat low over her face.

She was snoring within moments. The noise kept Terezi awake until they arrived back at their innblock.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The question arises of how Murvad can sneak up on the Scourge Sisters, if the laughsassin managing it comes as such a surprise to them. In interests of hand-waving this detail, let's just say she isn't paid to have very interesting thoughts and her experience in dodging guard barkbeasts has led to her cultivating a severely generic eau de toilette of her own devising, the scent of which could be described as "olfactory background noise." In fact, without her idiotic wig and livery, which she wears only in Port Ordred, and only then under sufferance and repeated polite requests from the Governor, she is the very picture of the Generic Bystander, Just a Face in the Crowd. 
> 
> This is all in contrast to the laughssassin, which Vriska could have picked out if she had, instead of sensations of conscious cognizance, been looking for a sucking void in her telepathic senses that warped perception to the breaking point, like an astronomer searching for black holes. But of course she doesn't usually do that, for obvious reasons like, say, she has no interest in abruptly going stark raving mad. Also laughssassins don't smell like much except a hint of pine oil. No one knows why and no one is in a hurry to find out.


	9. Respite

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Burning bridges light my way.
> 
> \- Reminder, Moderat

“Man, I just hate... eeeeeeeeverything... so much right now,” Vriska said, from her position with her head resting face-down on her arms at the cafeblock table. “People say crap like ‘you’ll feel that one in the evening’ all the time, but this just ain’t fucking funny. Feels like I got run over by a hoofbeast.”

“I thought you were supposed to be the tough one here, Serket,” Terezi replied from the other side of the table, where she was leaning back in her chair. She was currently halfway through her sixth tiny cup of viciously potent coffee, and still she felt as though she were in danger of floating away. It was hard to get decent sleep when various bits of her kept waking her up to let her know that, yep, they still hurt like hell. “The free-spirited seagrift who laughs at peril and never feels pain because she’s soused during every waking hour. You’re getting bested in the gives-no-fucks competition by the fussy paper-pusher with uncallused hands.”

Vriska lifted her head. There was a long line of sutures across her brow.

“Bullshit, you’re... what’s the word, smoldering?”

“I do not smolder, Serket. Especially not around you.”

“Fuming, but inwardly. In a grim way.”

“Brooding?”

Vriska snapped her fingers. “Yeah, that. You’re brooding like the broodiest brooder that ever brooded, whereas I’m just complaining, so therefore I give fewer fucks. I win.”

“Serket, you will know that I am brooding by the way that anywhere I sit becomes the darkest corner of the room and the angst radiating off my hunched form knocks you on your narrow ass. When I brood, passing tortured romance novel protagonists turn up their collars and start walking faster. Right now I am merely out of sorts. Anyway, if you want to talk brooding, lets talk about your face when Kanaya took your coat away to be burned.”

“I wasn’t—!”

“It was _delectable_. And when she showed you the new one that she had been working on—”

“God, with the belt—”

“‘To better suit your figure, Captain,’ oh my yes, now that was some top-shelf brooding right there.”

Vriska’s head sank back down to her arms. “Liked that coat. Lotta fond memories involving that coat.”

It wasn’t that they were slacking off or anything. They’d wanted to leave Port Ordred with all due haste, they’d put in an _effort_. But somewhere between getting out of the Governor’s scuttlecoach and the front door of the Shipbreaker Arms, both of their bodies had decided that they’d had enough and the two had to stagger the last few yards leaning on each other like drunks. Kanaya had been really unreasonable about making sure that they were patched up, no matter how much they had protested that they were just fine, thank you, and Sollux had flatly refused to put to sea with a captain who was probably going to fall down the quarterdeck stairs and break her neck like an idiot. So that was the end of their plans to depart immediately.

“Think of it like being on vacation,” Kanaya had said later, as she finished stitching Terezi’s shoulder. “When was the last time you got one of those?”

“Justice doesn’t grant time off,” Terezi replied, mumbling through the cold compress she was holding to her nose to bring down the swelling.

“Justice should consider a more generous benefits package. What is your rush? I thought our pursuer was dead.”

“She is, but every night we stay here is a night longer it takes to get to the Ammala Strand, and we haven’t even begun to figure out how to get past the Iron Horn.”

Kanaya patted her on the head. “Well, this way you have more time to figure it out.”

Terezi replied with rolled eyes and a few uncharitable comments about jadeblood tendencies.

Now, she and Vriska found themselves at loose ends, engaged in the business of recovering from their fight with the legislacerator. It wouldn’t have been so bad if word of their involuntary holiday hadn’t wended its way through surreptitious channels to the Governor’s ear and led him to take an interest in ensuring their remaining nights were as pleasant as possible. It was novel the first time they were told that their money was no good, at the cafeblock where they were last seen engaging in a debate on the topic of brooding. The second time, it was suspicious. The third, Terezi leaned over the counter, putting her face very close to that of the proprietor, and demanded an explanation. He told her, while fidgeting in the way common to those unfortunate enough to earn her undivided attention, that he had been informed the Governor would be very disappointed if anyone in town was rude enough to expect the two women to actually pay for food or lodging.

The revelation left Terezi wanting to bathe in acid.

Without relenquishing her claim on the proprietor’s personal space, she produced a handful of small change in the slow, deliberate manner of someone who wants her actions seen and their significance understood. One by one, she let the coins fall onto the counter.

“You can tell Governor Barsid,” she said in a low, even voice, “that I’d prefer if he kept his gratitude to himself.”

“That was mighty unappreciative of you, Pyrope,” Vriska said after catching up with Terezi on the street outside, a bag of _gratis_ fruit slung over her shoulder.

Terezi didn’t respond; her pan was too busy churning angrily away at itself to come up with anything snappy. Obviously, the Governor wasn’t as concerned about Mr. Pince-nez’s benefactors as he had claimed, if he was going around publicly bestowing favors on the women who had killed the man. So that was one lie, and where there was one there were likely to be many. Had anything he said that night been the truth? Maybe he had even been working both sides of the board, tipping off Alecto to their movements so as to better set her up for the clown to dispose of.

“You doing alright?” Vriska said.

“I’m fine, it’s nothing.”

“You look pretty broody for someone who’s fine.”

“Okay, you caught me, I’m brooding,” Terezi snapped, then sighed. “I think I’ll take off on my own for a while. I need some time to think.”

Vriska pulled a fruit from her bag, a huge mottled thing with a heavy rind. She considered it for a moment, then shrugged and took a large bite out of it.

“Suits me fine,” she said, pausing to spit out a chunk of pith, “you’re kinda cramping my style anyway. Don’t get me wrong, I like you and all, but I can’t afford to get a reputation around here as the captain who always hangs out with the snooty chick with the cane. Could do some serious damage to my cred.”

Involuntarily, Terezi smiled.

“Most of that hanging out was at your behest, Serket.”

“I know, it’s terrible. I think you’re getting to me, Pyrope. Next thing you know I’ll be letting merchanttrolls get away all on my own.”

“I suppose I would also hate to get a reputation as the snooty chick who always hangs around with the blustering sociopath with an attitude problem, so I will slink quietly away and leave you to salvage your cred as best you can.”

She had only made it a few steps when Vriska said, “Catch you later, Tez.”

Terezi stopped and turned back to her, amused.

“Excuse me? ‘Tez?’” she said.

“What, can I not call you that?”

“No. Not in a million sweeps. How would you like it if I started calling you ‘Vris?’”

Vriska shuddered. “Not at all; Ampora used to call me that, with that soggy wader accent of his and everything. Bluh. Fine, how about just plain old ‘Terezi,’ then? This stiff formality thing is wearing thin.”

Terezi tapped her teeth with the head of her cane, considering the idea.

“I’ll allow it,” she said. “And I’ll catch you later as well, Vriska.”

* * *

 

 

Terezi found herself, some time later, down at the distant end of one of Ordred’s many wandering tendrils, where the town wrapped around the back of the island. Development grew sparser and sparser as she moved away from the vital center of the town, then trailed off to a scant few ramshackle hives belonging to fishertrolls. Further still, where there were no hives at all, some entrepreneur long in the past had planted a stand of trees and ringed it with a crude stone wall. The wall was tumbled-down in parts now, the grounds left to become overgrown. It seemed unlikely there was anyone left to object to trespassers, so Terezi let herself in.

She crunched her way down a gravel path, twisting and turning between the trunks, luxuriating in the smell of sap and foliage and soil untainted by the town. Here and there she passed ruined buildings, lumps of stone and decayed timber being slowly swallowed by vines. A sapling grew through a splintered roof, reaching out for what little daylight it could hope to catch between its older kin. This had once been the grounds of a significant manorblock, one that may have even put the Governor’s to shame. A competitor, perhaps, cast down and destroyed in a struggle for power.

There had been a time when she’d walked under trees like these and thought she’d had it all worked out — the world had made sense and her place in it had been clear. There’d been a time when, if asked to picture her future, she could have conjure something besides an ominous blank. It almost made her envy her younger self.

Although, what point was there in envying ignorance? If she had once been certain, it was only because she didn’t comprehend the true nature of what she had aspired to. She had bought in wholly to a fantasy, a fiction perpetuated by the expenditure of so much energy and effort to create a rational facade for what was, in truth, little more than barbarism. Everything would have been so much easier if they had just left her to go on believing their lies, but they’d forced her hand, driven her to make a choice she wasn’t prepared for. They’d snatched certainty away from her and left her adrift, and for that she could never forgive them.

A fork in the path, a direction chosen arbitrarily, and she found herself standing before a shrine, its stones covered in moss. The idol was worn smooth in places but it was still unmistakably a likeness of the Handmaid, one hand raised with middle finger extended and the broken stub of a carved joint protruding from fading lips. Around the base of the statue, she could just make out the inscription — a bad Trollatin translation of the benediction of the foreign mystery cults that venerated the dread goddess. It read, in the Imperial dialect:

**YOUR LUSUS CHEWS OFFAL IN HELL, ROTFODDER.**

Or words to that effect.

The Empire was suffused with death, so it was unsurprising that some would find themselves drawn to worship a personification of it, much in the same way that ancient tribestrolls could have been drawn to worship a personification of the all-encompassing bowl of the sky. It had never been a very popular belief system, but there were always a few trolls desperate enough or vicious enough or just plain jaded enough to give anything a whirl. While the Bar and Eccsleaziarchy had never outright condemned the cult, its leaders and prominent figures had definitely been flagged for future monitoring. Because you just can’t trust anyone who worships _death_.

She pulled a quarter-caegar piece from her pocket, flipped it into the plate that sat in front of the idol and offered up a quick prayer that the Handmaid’s grip was firm enough to keep hold of Lyssis Alecto.

God, is that what she could have become, given enough time? If she had stayed with the Courtblock, would she have eventually wound up a bitterly hateful old woman, clinging myopically to the trappings of the law? Maybe instead of damning the Bar, she should thank them for showing their true colors before she’d let the place work its way into her bones.

Regardless, her structures for divining her place in the world were gone, which left her the task of rebuilding everything from scratch. The law had proved empty, and she was beginning to have doubts about justice itself. It seemed that there was very little point in any of it; for all the examples you made, the world would still have its Mr. Pince-nezes, all too happy to profit off the second-hand misery they created. She could labor for a thousand sweeps and scarcely made a dent in their ranks.

And complicating everything, squatting in the middle of her reckoning and throwing all her attempts at rationalization into acute disarray, was a smug, malicious lodestone called Vriska Serket. It wasn’t that the nature of their relationship was troubling, but rather it was troubling that there was a relationship to even speak of at all. Terezi was becoming uncomfortably comfortable around the seagrift, and she was unsure what to think of it. She was not so far gone as to be unable to recognize Serket as far from the kind of person one should allow themselves to become attached to in any meaningful sense. She was heedless, arrogant, cruel, and just plain _dangerous_ to be around, and when she did finally end up getting what she so richly deserved, she would drag everyone in her immediate vicinity down with her. Terezi wondered if the only reason that Vriska was still alive was that God had some extra-special, platinum reserve demise in mind for her.

And yet, somehow, part of Terezi didn’t care. Part of her found that doomed, foolish existence attractive. She’d felt it so long ago when she’d read through the seagrift’s dossier in the Courtblock’s records room, and she felt it now even more plainly. It had mutated over time, though, contorting and developing in confusing ways. All she could say for certain, as she departed from the grove and started back towards town, was that playing stupid was no longer an option. If Serket signalled her interest any harder, she’d be reciting poetry at Terezi from outside her window in the middle of the day. And if Serket ever actually managed to stop sandbagging on this damn dinner thing, even if it had originally be intended as a platonic gesture, which Terezi very much doubted, there was no way it would be platonic now. And if Terezi’s growing irritation with the sandbagging was anything to go by, she didn’t particularly mind if maybe there were certain _overtones_ to the affair that tilted in certain directions.

Which directions, specifically, she couldn’t say, but they all had a certain appeal.

She was somewhere in the warehouse district of Ordred, not far from where the crew of the _Heated Discourse_ had sprung their ambush, when a ball of yarn came bouncing out the open door of an otherwise unassuming storefront, unraveling as it went, and came to a halt in front of her. A minor coincidence, but not something worth stopping to consider for more than a moment — at least, until the yarn was followed by a woman’s voice.

“Pardon my escapee. It saw what became of its cohorts and decided that the life of a street urchin was preferable to that of a lumpy scarf,” she said. The inside of the shop was in heavy shadow, lit only by single candle, rendering the speaker invisible but for the indistinct outline of a person standing near the door with a pair of knitting needles in one hand. Above the door hung a sign reading:

**FORTUNES, PORTENTS, ADUMBRATION**

And then in smaller writing underneath:

**HARUSPICY BY APPOINTMENT ONLY**

“A fugitive, eh?” Terezi said. She retrieved the yarn and tossed it to the figure, who began winding it up. “I remand it to your custody.”

“My thanks, officer. Could I interest you in a reading?”

“Do I look like a mark?”

“No, you look like a soul in search of answers.”

Terezi snorted. “Does that line work often?”

“Often enough.”

“And do you actually provide answers?”

“Good lord, no. I’d have to change my sign.”

“So why should I pay good money for your alleged services?”

“Because you don’t confuse an absence of answers with an absence of insight. In any case, it’s only a caegar and it’s not as if you have any pressing engagements.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Would you still be talking to me if you did?”

To Terezi’s surprise, she found herself inside the fortune teller’s shop, taking a seat at a round table hung with purple cloth as the proprietor lit a few extra candles to bring the illumination of the room up to a moderate gloom. The room was cramped, the walls jammed with overloaded bookcases. A few tomes lay open on the floor here and there, their pages filled with writing in an unknown alphabet and illustrations of complicated symbols that made Terezi glad she was blind. The proprietor, a delicate-looking silhouette dressed head to toe in orange with a hood pulled low to hide her face, sat at the table across from Terezi. The woman had no visible horns, Terezi realized. Perhaps they were kept filed down as an occult fashion statement.

“You seem the businesslike sort, so I won’t waste your time with ritualistic padding,” the fortune teller said, producing a deck of cards from, apparently, thin air. It was a neat bit of sleight of hand. “No chanting, no trances, no communing with the spirits, just five cards and no refunds. Is that acceptable?”

“I’m not so sure about the no refunds part.”

“Apologies, but I can hardly ask for my product back once it has been sold, so I’m forced to take precautions.” The fortune teller held out a gloved hand. “Now pay up.”

Terezi obliged. The coin disappeared into the fortune teller’s robes.

“Thank you. With that unpleasantry out of that way, let us begin.”

She took the cards and performed a complicated shuffling routine that Terezi could have sworn at one point involved the deck cutting itself. Five cards were laid in a row on the table, face down. The fortune teller passed her hand over them, feeling for something, then placed a finger on the one furthest to her left. She flipped it, revealing an illustration of a galley drawn up on a beach with flames billowing up around it, licking its mast. The picture seemed to glow faintly in the gloom.

“The Burning Boats,” she said. “A very stark, strident card. Yours is a tale with inauspicious beginnings, officer. The way behind is closed to you by your own hand.”

Terezi crossed her arms and tried to ignore the electric shiver that ran up her spine. “That’s a very niche card, isn’t it? I thought tarot decks were all cups and daggers and fellows hung upside down.”

“You are correct. However, this is no tarot deck, no cheap amusement for children tittering under their bedclothes at a sleep over. No, this is something entirely other, wrested by dark contract from the grip of Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos themselves. I’d be lying if I said I understood it completely; in fact, I rarely see the same cards twice.”

“So how do you know what the cards mean?”

The fortune teller tapped the side of her head meaningfully. “Dark contracts, officer. Shall we continue?”

She flipped the second card, revealing the image of a solider leaning on a pike atop a wall. The soldier was trollishoid in form, but his skin was an unnatural hue and he, like the fortune teller, had no horns. Something about it made Terezi uneasy.

“The Ardent Vigil,” the fortune teller said. “Another harsh card. It speaks of a watch kept outward for so long that the unattended light within becomes neglected and grows dim. Duty drives the soul to exhaustion, but to turn away is a test of the will. A choice is made, for good or for ill, at great personal cost.”

She flipped the third card. Upon it was pictured a shining, metal road winding through a desert beneath a blazing sun.

“The Road of Brass,” she said. “This... this is not your card. It signifies another, one close to you. My God, are your interpersonal relationships as miserable as yourself?”

“I’m not paying you to editorialize, charlatan,” Terezi said.

“Forgive me. This card connotes... well, nothing good. Pain, mostly — both inflicted on the self and on others — but also ceaseless forward motion as an attendant factor. To stop is to die, to continue is to die. The only question is that of time.”

The fourth card was turned, revealing a lash of corded, knotted leather, stained with red coloration that Terezi took to be blood.

“The Knout — penance, punishment, or perhaps even rectification. A fitting card for you, officer. It speaks of obeisance to a higher calling, and of duty that needs fulfilling. It has another name, one that will become familiar to you in time — The Scourge.”

The fortune teller turned the final card, revealing a ruined city with streaks of flame raining from the sky upon it.

“Apocalypse,” she said. “Cataclysm, convulsion, rebirth, and revelation. The end of the old and the ushering in of the new, an unveiling of that which is hidden, and a loosening of the chains that bind.”

The fortune teller sat back in her chair and peered at Terezi from the darkness under her hood.

“Quite an interesting life you have led, lead, and will lead, Miss Pyrope.”

Terezi jolted out of the reverie that had overtaken her.

“How do you know my—” she started, only to be cut off by the fortune teller’s raised hand.

“Once again, dark contracts, made long ago by a silly girl who had no comprehension of what the word ‘eternity’ truly means. Much is made clear to me, and all that is requested of me in turn is the occasional commission from the speakers in the vast gulf between the disjointed realities. In my spare time, when they see fit to let me settle in one place for long enough, I offer penny-ante counsel to people like you, because even servants of unfathomable intelligences need to eat.”

The fortune teller shifted, allowing the light of a candle to partially fall across her face and revealing an eye of pale lavender.

“Tell me, are you familiar with the three great curses? ‘May you come to the attention of the powerful, may you live in interesting times, and may you find what you are looking for.’ The first two have already befallen you, and the third is not far behind. Look to the east, Miss Pyrope. It is there that you will hit the trifecta, as despair gives way to renewed clarity. You have found that the sword ill-suits you; remember that Justice girds herself with other implements as well. That will be not only your salvation, but the salvation of your companion, she who wears her wounds as a shirt of mail that she might feel naught else.”

Terezi rose to leave. “So instead of answers you present your customers with infuriating little riddles. It’s a wonder you see any business at all.”

“I’m afraid it’s rather expected of me. I’ve been told that, in retrospect, I’m very accurate. Do you mind if I trouble you for a small favor?”

“Nothing good comes of small favors in this town, charlatan.”

“This is honestly but a trifle. If you would be so kind, pass my regards along to your ship’s mediculler. Let her know that I find myself with a clear schedule for the moment, and that I miss our little talks.”

A moment of vertigo, like attempting to climb a step that isn’t there, but magnified a hundred times, struck Terezi, and the next thing she knew she was back on the street.

The delivery of the fortune teller’s message, hours later, brought such a flush to Kanaya’s face that, for a moment, she went deep jade from scalp to throat. She hurried off with vague promises to return “later,” and was not seen again for several nights.

* * *

 

 

Nights passed, pain decreased and wounds closed. The time for departure grew nigh, far too long in coming for Terezi’s liking. She had grown more agitated with each passing hour, until finally, the night before they had planned to leave, she found herself unable to remain still for even a moment. By her reckoning, she must have walked two full circuits of the town before her wanderings brought her down to the docks where, rounding a corner, she nearly walked headlong into a solid wall of standing trolls. A crowd, hundreds strong, had formed along the piers and wharves, filling them to near capacity, with every eye trained on a solitary figure atop the deck of the _Chelicerate Incarnadine_. A thin piping of distant invective drifted to her over the heads of the throng — Karkat was holding forth.

She spotted Sollux a short distance away, hanging back from the crowd, seated on a crate with his ubiquitous broadsheet. It took more than a little shoving to reach him — even at its thinnest point, there was still not much room to walk through the press.

“What the hell is going on here, Captor?” she said. “Vantas is supposed to be laying low, not addressing the whole damned town.”

“I told them it was a bad idea,” Sollux replied, “but of course, no one listens to me.”

She yanked the broadsheet from his hands and threw it aside.

“You’re an officer of some sort, exercise your damn authority!”

He crossed his arms and shot her an insolent look. “Not my job to incite my own lynching. Look,” he pointed out a troll a short distance away, a woman wearing a wide tricorne between her horns and tremendous amounts of gaudy jewelry that clashed with her austere military dress. “That’s Ludmil Shaume, captain of the _Wine-Dark Marauder_. She collects the auriculars of people who piss her off. Over there,” he pointed out another troll, shirtless but for the tattoos that covered every exposed inch of his skin, “is Bomund Iuscar, of the _Mad Monk_. He’s taken a vow of silence, with an exception made for an hour after he’s killed someone.”

Terezi turned slowly from side to side, following as he indicated a dozen colorful, murderous characters, all of whom had gathered to listen to Karkat speak.

“Word got around, like it does,” Sollux said, “and after that, it was out of our hands. But Karkat, he volunteered for this. He wants to be heard, and frankly I’m not about to argue with him or any of these other creeps.”

“I don’t blame you; they look like complete maniacs.”

“Oh, they are.”

“And they’re all interested in getting lectured on the topic of not killing people?”

“Dunno about ‘interested in;’ I’d say more ‘amused by.’ But, shit, Sufferites pop up in the weirdest places."

“And in the event that they stop being amused?”

“We all get murdered in the ensuing riot and the town burns to the ground.”

“Wonderful.”

A nearby troll turned and requested, in extremely uncouth language, that they should either be quiet or go away.

“So long parable short, I figured out the problem all you dumb bastards have,” Karkat shouted, holding aloft a book. “This! This right here! I don’t know how many of you can even read, but you’ve all decided that the words of some dead, mouthy mutant get to supercede your own thinkpans. That’s stupid, you’re stupid for doing it, and tonight I’m going to give you the go-ahead to rub some of that glutinous shit you keep in your cranial plates together of your own volition.”

He opened the book, fanned the pages, and began tearing them out. Several trolls in the crowd gasped and others began muttering to each other.

“What’s this chapter? _Meditations on Ethics_? More like _Meditations on a Heap of Steaming Behemoth Leavings_. This chapter can fuck off, so can this one, and oh man this one can really seriously get bent. And stop whispering back there, unless you got something you want to share with the rest of us! Yeah, you! You pricks can’t leave me alone for ten minutes, and now that you’ve got me good and pissed off, you’re not paying attention. Shut up!”

He held the much thinner book up again, then turned and pitched it into the harbor.

“You know what that book takes way, waaay too many words to say? ‘Stop screwing up.’ That’s it, that’s all the wisdom it has to offer. I would say that I just saved you a whole bunch of time, but I know how you people work. I can’t make this too simple for you, because then you’d just go looking for some fucking hidden meaning in that advice and miss the whole point, so I guess I have to dress a moronically basic concept up in some pseudo-spiritual-slash-philosophical language for you people.”

He held up three fingers.

“Imagine yourself not as... goddammit I cannot believe I’m saying this... not as an individual, but as a continuum of three individuals — your past self, your present self, and your future self. Now the present self is you, as you conceive of yourself right now, obviously. You being you, doing the best you can to muddle through. And your present self is beset at all times, at _all times_ , by your past and future selves. Your past self is a simpleton, just unbelievably stupid, sitting there spiting you with their ignorance and bad decisions. Your future self is a smug asshole, waiting in the distance with their superior knowledge and watching you screw up with a smarmy look on their face, shaking their head. Now forget that book, forget all those words and ponderings about _right thoughts, right deed, right blah blah blah_. It’s all useless shit from a guy who just wants to keep you in suspense so he can hear himself talk. Your goal in life, irrespective of anything else, should be to spite those two _insufferable globefondlers to the best of your abilities_.”

“Oh God,” Terezi whispered, “he’s promulgating his neuroses now.”

“Dealing with your past self,” Karkat continued, “that’s the easy one. They’re stupid, so all you have to do to put them in their place is not be as dumb as they were. Learn your lessons, don’t make the same mistakes they did. I hope one of you is writing this down because this is Militant Vantas’ First Law right here, and where that book gets it wrong: you will always screw up. There is always some damn thing your past self has done that you can avoid. You’ll never hit some point where you always get it right. Remember that! Because if you don’t, then you’re just giving your future self something to be smug about. Which brings me to the next part of the lesson...”

And on he plowed for the next half hour, his voice growing hoarse and his gestures less frantic as he wore himself out. At last he announced, “Alright, that’s all you’re getting tonight. Fuck off, all of you!” and the crowd began to disperse. Once again, to Terezi’s amazement, there was no outcry, no anger. Once again the Word of Vantas had been received with _deference_ , of all things, by hardened criminals.

Terezi caught up with him back in the hold of the _Incarnadine_ , where he had flung himself into the pile of loose blankets and bolts of cloth that made up his bedding. He lay with an arm draped over his eyes, mouth working as he silently cursed everyone and everything under the span of the heavens.

“Looks like you’re growing into your title, Vantas,” she said, seating herself on a barrel. “I’m impressed, that screed could almost be mistaken for constructive.”

“Yeah, well, I decided to do what you and Kanaya suggest and stop thinking about it. I let my jabbercrevice run and that’s what fell out. Hooray for me.”

“Once upon a time, you would have been delighted to have so many trolls hanging on your every bellowed word.”

Karkat sat up. “That was before I saw what happens when people take too much interest in what I have to say. It isn’t pretty, Terezi; they start getting ideas that get them killed. It ended badly before, and it’ll end badly again.”

“Like it or not, you have a following. It falls to you to shepherd them.”

“Wow, a following. Don’t see how that’s such an accomplishment. Even Captain Asshole manages that much.”

Terezi clipped him across the shoulder with her cane. “Don’t be dense. Vriska is a petty warlord, people follow her out of greed, or fear, or, maybe, if she’s very lucky, even respect. But when it comes to you, they follow out of belief. It is one thing to induce loyalty in a troll, a purpose for which avarice or martial prowess will suffice. But belief can insulate them from duress and deprivation that should slay them.”

Karkat scowled at her. “Did you just come up with that? It sounds like a quote. Are you quoting some fucked up legal text at me?”

Felbrief’s _Discontent and Its Suppression_ , page ninety-two.

“No,” Terezi said.

“Sure,” Karkat sneered. “Anyway, you’re on a first-name basis with the Captain now? Getting all social with her?”

“That is none of your business.”

“I see, so that’s how it is,” Karkat held his hands out to his side and looked upwards towards the roof of the hold, supplicating himself before some divinity of the chronically irritated. “God’s fangs, please don’t let her be that stupid. Pretty please with grubsauce on top, let her actually listen to advice for a change.”

“I do not need your advice on how to conduct my private affairs, Vantas. I’m a big girl, I can handle myself just dandy.”

Karkat gave her a jaundiced look. “I’m more worried about how she’ll handle you, if you catch my drift. What quadrant are you even considering for this debacle? Not black, I hope. She looks like about five hundred pounds of high explosive drama.”

Terezi hesitated. “I’m not sure. It’s... complicated.”

“Oh, complicated. Yeah that sounds about right. Hang on, I’ve got something here that might help.”

He rose from his spot and began digging through a heap of books piled nearby. Every so often he would pick one up to flip through it briefly before casting it aside. Eventually, he found what he was looking for.

“Here,” he said, holding the book out to Terezi. “It’s not the best example of the genre, but it gets the job done. I’ve already got the damn thing memorized so feel free to slobber all over it to your bloodpusher’s content.”

Terezi gave the book a once-over.

“What is it?” she said.

“Early Principalities romantic bildungsroman, _Wherein the Protagonist Finds Himself of Conflicting Attitudes Regarding a Partner Beneath His Dignity and Station, Yet_ —”

The book bounced off his forehead, eliciting a loud profanity.

“Karkat I do not need a romance novel to give me advice on how to sort out my feelings!”

“Well excuse me for trying to help!” he bellowed back, clutching at his head as if he had been mortally wounded. “It’s not as if you’ve got a lot of instinct to fall back on!”

Terezi, outraged, drew herself up to the full extent of her modest height. “For all you know, Vantas, my game is off the scale!”

Karkat snorted. “What, did you study that in slaughtercollege too?”

“Maybe I did! Maybe I ascended to the august and noble title of Hustlemaster General during my training! Maybe I walked the halls of the Cruelest Bar with a ten-caegar piece of ass on each arm, in a velvet robe with a pipe in my teeth!”

“But you didn’t, did you?”

Terezi stood with finger raised and mouth hanging open, searching for an adequate comeback.

“No,” she said.

“Right, and there’s nothing wrong with that, but, let’s be honest here, you’ll need all the help you can get when it comes to Captain Serket. So just take the fucking book, okay?”

“I’ll take it under advisement.” She wandered over to the heap of books by Karkat’s bedding and prodded them with the toe of her shoe. “Where did you get all these, anyway?”

Karkat shrugged. “The crew brings them to me. I guess there’s a good bookstore in town; some of them are pretty rare.”

“They’re supposed to be guarding you, not running errands. And Vriska would flip her shit right out of the room if she found out they were taking orders from anyone but her.”

“She can take a hike. I can’t just sit here night in and night out, waiting for Captor to deign to kick my ass at shatranj.”

It was a fair point, Terezi was forced to concede. She took the novel from the floor before leaving; what harm could it do?

* * *

 

 

They put to sea the next night, with refilled stocks and a crew replenished from amongst the ranks of Ordred’s ne’er-do-well population. Competition for crew was stiff in the port and, in Terezi’s opinion, the fresh meat trended either far too young or far too old to be useful.

“Wasn’t aware you were running a wigglersitter service,” she remarked to Sollux as she observed a pair of trolls who couldn’t have been older than six struggling to roll a barrel over to the cargo hatch.

“Welcome to the magical realm of ‘good enough,’” he said, “where if you can haul a line, you’re a natural mariner.”

Once the _Incarnadine_ had cleared the rocks of Shipbreaker Bay, much of the voyage north, back into the borders of the Empire, was spent drilling the new arrivals to Vriska’s exacting standards. She stood on the deck all through the night, ordering them through one configuration of sails to the next. More time still was spent on firing exercises — packing the ship’s guns and firing off broadsides while Vriska walked up and down the line of toiling gunners, offering advice and abuse in equal measure.

“Two minutes and forty seconds,” she said after a particularly unsatisfactory barrage. “What a pack of useless idiots I’ve had inflicted on me. Mister Pellew, will you kindly inform these lollygaggers what the standard expected of Admiralty gunners is?”

The master gunner stared at his feet for a moment before answering. “Two minutes thirty seconds maximum for a broadside. But, Captain, begging your pardon, the lads and lasses have been at this all night. They’re exhausted. Can we not give them a chance to rest?”

“They’ll be proper exhausted when the shit hits the oscillator and they find themselves squaring off against a well-trained Admiralty ship. Listen to me, all of you,” she spoke to the crew at large, “if I seem harsh or demanding, understand it is because there are no half measures taken on this ship. We cannot afford to be anything less than the best, because there are always tremendous odds arrayed against us. Two minutes forty does not pass muster. Once again, load your guns and be ready to fire at my command...”

And so it went for nine nights, as the _Incarnadine_ beat its way for the Iron Horn against unfavorable winds and high seas. Terezi removed herself from the operations of the ship as much as possible, passing time in her quarters, reading the book Karkat had given her. It was abominably stupid stuff, really — packed with cliches and well-worn tropes that made every twist and turn of the plot visible from a mile distant. Of course the romantic interests would be separated by social standing, of course there would be some convenient misunderstanding that drove a wedge through their burgeoning relationship, of course the comedy relief sidekick would get culled two-thirds of the way through. Regardless of the predictability, she slogged her way through for want of anything better to do. Karkat would, no doubt, have been able to point out the significance of any given passage, but unfortunately was unavailable to offer any input. He had taken, instead, to holding forth from his little nest in the hold to whatever crew desired to hear him. It left Terezi feeling a bit useless, actually.

On the eleventh night, she received an invitation to dine with the Captain.

* * *

 

She would have liked to say that Vriska cleaned up well, but that would have been a lie. The Captain had put in an effort, even going so far as to button her coat and attempt to put a brush through her hair — how many brushes had died in pursuit of that duty, Terezi wondered — but the end result was merely a somewhat less scruffy Vriska Serket. She looked uncomfortable, standing in the chart room at a kind of military rest when Terezi entered, her face betraying surprise that her guest had turned up. The table had been cleared of its usual clutter of charts and maps, leaving only a candelabra and a few bottles behind.

“Hi,” Vriska said, “Sorry this took so long to happen. Felt like there was always some God damned thing distracting me.”

“That sounds like an excuse, Vriska,” Terezi replied, taking in the ambience with a few deep sniffs.

Vriska laughed humorlessly. “Seriously, I wasn’t trying to blow you off or anything, it’s just...”

Terezi walked a slow loop around her, tittering softly. “You found yourself apprehensive about placing yourself at the disposal of an agent of the Upper Courtblock, yes?”

“Let’s go with that. Wine? I’ve got a terrible little vintage on hand that you could use to preserve a flank of meat for a sweep.”

It was, in fact, quite bad wine. But it was plentiful and potent and after a while the quality stopped mattering so much. They were both on the gregarious side of tipsy, laughing loudly at stupid things and talking animatedly, by the time Gisigo entered with the food. With a riduculous, proprietorial air he laid upon the table a platter bearing enormous fillets of sea bass and — and here Terezi’s heart lept — fresh greens and citrus fruits.

“Will there be anything else, Captain? Miss Pyrope?” he said, the pride in his voice making Terezi feel embarrassed for him.

Vriska waved her hand at him. “Nah, thanks Gisigo.”

He gave an ungainly bow and departed. Terezi twisted in her chair to watch him leave.

“Is he entirely... _all-there_?” she said.

Vriska shrugged. “Almost certainly not. He’s mentioned getting kicked in the head by a hoofbeast as a wiggler, so we figure it left him a little strange. Damn fine sharpshooter, mind you.”

Terezi turned back to Vriska, eyebrow cocked. “Him? He twitches like an addict.”

“I know, but put a long arm in his hands and suddenly it’s like he’s made of stone. He’s got this fancy piece he picked up in the Shahdom with this groove cut into the inside of the barrel, a real work of art, could probably cut your hair from a hundred yards with it. Anyway, enough about that, where was I? Ah, right, so Captain Shaume has a knife in my back and...”

All in all, it was a surprisingly pleasant affair – the food was decent, Serket made for tolerable company, and by the time they’d moved on to aperitifs, Terezi was legitimately enjoying herself.

The question would be asked again, sooner or later, Terezi knew this. Sooner or later, she would give an answer. Not because she was obligated, but because on some level she wanted to share it with Vriska. Why, specifically, she couldn’t say. Perhaps it was some subconscious desire to deepen the trust that had slowly, achingly grown between them. Through some twist of a snickering fate, the seagrift was the first person with whom she could imagine sharing the story.

Hell with it; tear the bandage off in one go.

“Well then, Captain,” she said, pausing to dab at her mouth with a threadbare linen napkin. “That was not the ordeal I had anticipated.”

Vriska raised her glass in a mock toast. “Never let it be said I ain’t affable out the ass when the mood takes me.”

“Indeed, it won’t. Not from me, at least. And as compensation for your generosity, I offer you this — ask me anything you want, and I will give you a truthful and complete answer.”

Vriska laughed, a self-satisfied, saw-edged sound that Terezi could stand to hear more of.

“Y’know,” Vriska said, “you deal in anecdotes like some people deal in contraband. It’s kind of cute, really. But I’ll play your game, you tight-fisted little geek.”

A moment passed as Vriska pretended to think, as if both of them didn’t know what she was about to ask.

Terezi waited patiently, obediently playing her part in their little charade. When the question was finally popped, she could have mouthed along with it.

“So what happened to your eyes, then?”

Terezi told her.

Dragons and forests and the whispering of her guardian’s voice in her dreams.

Awakening from unsettling dreams to the pitiless stare of the light season sun searing away her vision.

Tutelage in seeing without sight, as the High Pyral Wyrms of old.

A parasite, no larger than the first joint of a finger, the reason that dragons no longer ruled the sky, that could find gaps in scales impervious to shot and steel.

Hearing a beloved creature die by degrees, night by night.

A forest suddenly foreboding and lonely.

Vriska had nothing to add. An unfamiliar expression settled over her face, taking the exuberance from her. Sadness looked unnatural on her. In a way, Terezi regretted causing it.

“I’m sorry,” Vriska said, following a long silence.

“For what?”

“That you had to deal with that. It sucks when people who actually liked their guardians lose them.”

“We all have to deal with it sooner or later.”

“Some of us would rather it be sooner, and others deserve later.”

“Are you brooding on my behalf?”

“Maybe.”

“Well I guess that makes us even then.”

Another long silence, more uncomfortable this time.

“Have you given any thought to what you’ll do when this is all over?” Vriska said.

“I have no idea.” Terezi replied.

Briefly, the sun crested the horizon. The _Incarnadine_ plowed onward.


	10. Interlude

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I believe that, the way I usually do things, this is where you would normally see some really self-indulgent quote that's tangentially related to something in the chapter you're about to read. Instead of doing that, as this is a short chapter meant to shift us towards the endgame and make up for what's probably going to be a long delay in getting the next chapter up, this time I'm going to use this space to thank y'all for following thus far and giving me the encouragement to keep churning away at this thing. 
> 
> Okay you get one quote.
> 
> "Photoshoot fresh, lookin' like wealth, I'm 'bout to call the paparazzi on myself." - Jack Aubrey.
> 
> Yes, I'm quite certain it was Jack Aubrey who said that.

The _HICS Superfluous_ waited, hull down behind the horizon, its lookouts’ eyes fixed on the exit of Shipbreaker Bay, for many nights. It had seen the _Incarnadine_ arrive and then depart, but still no word, no orders from the Barristerror reached them from shore. The crew was growing restive, and Commodore Dumane grew restive with them.

He was not an impatient man, Dumane — centuries of service to the Empire had beaten that trait out of him. The impatience of his crew was of little concern to him. Lowblood conscripts all, they knew that their continued wellbeing depended on obedience and respect granted to their seadweller officers. Lashings, or worse, awaited any troll foolish enough to start trouble under the watch of the _Superfluous_ ’s contingent of aquassailants. Nor did Dumane have any particular love for the legislacerator at whose disposal he had been placed; he would hardly have been sad to hear of her death in Ordred. What bothered him was the sheer inconsiderate gall of that blasted woman, dragging him away from his fleet, halfway across the hemisphere, to wait, exposed and aimless, while she went galavanting off on whatever business she had. Who knew what the rest of the fleet was getting up to in his absence. The _Puissant_ , his flagship before he had been called away on this errand, was under the command of a gutterblood, for God’s sake. A diligent and honorable gutterblood, by gutterblood standards, but still, it made him uneasy to leave a ship of that rating in the hands of someone without gills to call their own.

Honestly, he thought as he took a deep drag on his pipe and paced the deck, if she absolutely had to get herself killed, she could have at least announced her intention to do so.

He was about to return to his quarters to stew in his aggravation when the cry went up from aloft.

“Lanterns! Three points abaft starboard beam!”

Dumane’s spyglass unfolded with a sharp snap as he raised it. Sure enough, there in the distance were points of light moving against the night sky. A smuggler, no doubt, setting out from the port that allegedly, if the legislacerator was to be believed, lay behind the rocks. Notably, it was not the cutter he had entrusted to her care — the lanterns were too numerous and too widely spaced, suggesting a larger craft. He ground his teeth and lowered the spyglass. Damn her, and damn Lord Ampora. Dumane had very nearly had his fill of this whole—

“Commodore!” came another shout, “It’s making for us!”

 _Snap_ went the spyglass again. Minutes dragged by as Dumane watched the lights creep forward, slowly but surely. Whatever the ship was, it was beating a course straight for the _Superfluous_.

“Your orders, Commodore?” a voice said from Dumane’s left. Lieutenant Letraq, a young sprat from a solid hatchsign with a demeanor that put Dumane in the mind of a predatory featherbeast, had come upon him while he was distracted. Dumane didn’t like him very much; he was entirely too observant, and was aggressively competent in a way that seemed to suggest he thought that everyone else was screwing up constantly.

“Your assessment, Mister Letraq?” Dumane replied, putting the ball back in the Lieutenant’s court.

“It could be our belated guest,” Letraq said, rocking forward on the balls of his feet, “but in these waters, who knows? Perhaps some of Shipbreaker’s ghosts have gone out for a turn on open water?”

The mystery ship drew closer, enough so that detail could be made out by the light of its lanterns: a two-masted ketch, definitely not Dumane’s lost cutter. No signal of recognition came from its deck or rigging, no flares or semaphore lights. If it was the Barristerror, she wasn’t taking any steps to identify herself.

“Beat to quarters, Mister Letraq,” Dumane said. He would have his answers, at gunpoint if necessary.

“Aye, Commodore,” the Lieutenant whirled on his heel and bellowed to the crew “Beat to quarters, you sniveling barkbeasts! Clear for action!”

A drum struck up a martial rhythm as the crew threw themselves into the task of preparing the _Superfluous_ for engagement. Partitions belowdecks were cleared away to make room for the guns; abovedecks, equipment was secured and clutter was stowed. Within but a few minutes, the _Superfluous_ was ready for whatever came to meet it. The ketch continued its intercept course, plowing steadily through the choppy surf.

“My compliments to the gunners, Mister Letraq, one shot across their bow,” Dumane said. Even at his age, the prospect of combat set his nerves to tingling and made his hands quake. But there was naught shameful in this, he told himself; it merely meant that he knew the risks. He had seen the fates of too many trolls to ever be comfortable with the sound of cannon fire.

The order was passed to the gunners, and a single cannon barked. The shot splashed down off the ketch’s port bow, to little effect. The ketch continued on its course, taking no notice.

Dumane was beginning to grow uncomfortable.

“Mister Letraq,” he said, slightly louder than he should have, “make ready to fire. Chain shot on the uproll. I want that ship disabled.”

Again, the order passed. A broadside roared, rolling the ship under Dumane’s feet, and a whistling cloud of shot washed over the approaching ketch. Its masts buckled and broke, its sails were shredded into bare tatters. Still, it came onwards. By the time it was finally immobilized for good, following two more full broadsides, it had drifted into pistol-shot range of the _Superfluous_.

Beneath the fallen rigging and torn sails and scattered remains of the masts, the ketch’s deck was deserted.

“Curious,” Dumane said, between drags on his pipe. “Perhaps your ghosts theory has some merit, Mister Letraq.”

Letraq drummed his fingers on the railing, peering at the ketch through narrowed eyes. “As much as I’d like to claim credit for the insight, Commodore, I’m more inclined to say that someone’s having a round of Silly Buggers at our expense. Permission to secure the hulk?”

Dumane nodded. “Granted.”

A longboat was put out, carrying the Lieutenant and a squad of aquassailants. Dumane watched them cross to the ketch with mild trepidation — something was going on, and he didn’t like not knowing what. He watched them pick slowly through the wreckage on the deck; an aquassailant mounted the quarterdeck stairs, turned aside a heap of broken timber by the wheel, then called something to his comrades. Others, with Letraq among them, descended belowdecks with bayonets fixed on the ends of their muskets.

By Dumane’s reckoning, about seven sweeps passed before Letraq reappeared on the deck, cupped his hands around his mouth, and called across the water to him.

“Sir, I believe you should see this! We’ve found the Barristerror!”

“By God, she’s alive?” Dumane called back.

“Mostly, sir! We thought she was gone until she tried to stab me!”

“Stabbed you, you say?”

“Tried to stab me! Mostly just caught my coat! She’s in a bad way, sir!”

By the time Dumane transferred himself to the ketch, the aquassailants had helped the staggering Barristerror onto the deck. Just as Letraq had said, she was in a bad way. Deep cuts criss-crossed her face, with one particularly ugly wound, clumsily sewn shut and livid with the heat of infection, stretching from just under the hair over her ear, over her cheek, and down to her jaw. Stained bandages wrapped most of her upper body, over her torn doublet. From a heavy burlap sack just about large enough to carry a coconut that had been tied to her belt, she carried the stench of death with her.

“We found her in the hold, next to the bodies of crew,” Letraq said.

“A fight?” Dumane asked.

“No sir, a massacre. She stacked them like cordwood. According to Corporal Adagir,” he gestured to the aquassailant who had called out from the quarterdeck, “she lashed the helmsman to the wheel and cut his femoral artery. The man had only just died when we boarded.”

“Good God.” Dumane looked the Barristerror over and added, “I hope you found success, madam.”

“Oh, yes,” Alecto spat, “success in great, bounteous heaps! The fruits of victory positively melt upon my flavor flap, Commodore!”

The aquassailants’ grip on her tightened as she fought against them.

“She is somewhat delirious from fever, Commodore,” Letraq said, his voice flat.

“You don't say,” Dumane replied. “Madam Barristerror, you are being sarcastic with me, yes?”

“Once again we see the wader’s superior mental capacities in action! Observe how he is able to spot facetiousness at distances of up to five feet, given sufficient run-up!”

“This is uncalled for—”

The aquassailants stumbled slightly as Alecto tried to wrench herself loose from their grasp.

“It’s extremely fucking called for, you burbling slitneck!” She jerked her chin in the direction of the sack hanging at her waist. “Open it.”

Dumane hesitated.

“Open it!”

Dumane’s eyes flicked towards Letraq.

“Open it,” he said.

Under Alecto’s unrelenting stare, Letraq retrieved the sack and tipped it out. A leering, greasepainted head bounced off the deck with a solid, wooden noise.

“God’s fangs!” Dumane and Letraq cried in unison.

Alecto laughed.

“There, you see?” she said, her voice suddenly dropping to a low snarl. “This is violence! The church has acted on their seditious threats, outing themselves as traitors to the Empire. And if you think for an instant that your precious Admiralty is not threatened, recall that you are implicated in the plot against the Eccsleaziarchy as much as the Cruelest Bar.”

Letraq sputtered, going purple in the face. “You threaten—”

“No, idiot!” Alecto shouted, “I _warn_! I _promise_! Do you think the water can protect you? What happens when you make for port and see a host of zealots waiting for you by the docks? Will you burn at anchor, or starve on the sea? Which will it be, Commodore? A damnation of your choosing!”

Letraq’s sword hissed as it cleared his scabbard, coming to rest across Alecto’s shoulder.

“Commodore, this woman has plainly gone mad. With your permission—”

Dumane held up a hand. “Denied, Lieutenant. She is, unfortunately, correct. Madam Barristerror, may I speak frankly with you for a moment, not as a Commodore but as merely one troll to another?”

She said nothing, which he took to be acquiescence. He squatted next to her, sitting back on his haunches.

“Let me make one thing clear before I continue,” he said, “when I stand back up, you will give me and my subordinates the respect we are due for our rank and caste, or I will personally hold you underwater until the bubbles stop. Is that understood?”

Silence.

“I said, is that under—”

“Yes, Commodore,” Alecto snapped.

“Good. Now, Madam Barristerror, I am not like you. I am no political officer; I have no understanding of the greater maneuverings of the state. I never wanted any of this, and if it were up to me, Lord Ampora would have been frogmarched before a court martial for even proposing it. But regardless of my personal feelings on the matter, I find myself up to my neck in some very unpleasant stuff. So I want to know, right now madam, with no further preamble or hysterics, what you propose we do about this situation.”

Dumane stood up, produced his pipe from inside his coat, and lit it.

“Marshal your fleet detachment and set sail to the Iron Horn,” Alecto said, her tone now careful and measured.

“You would have me leave the southern passage unguarded?”

“The interdiction there has served its purpose. It is useless now. My quarry flees for the Horn, and they will not leave it.”

“Well, that’s lovely for them,” Letraq interjected. “I fail to see how settling your little courtblock vendetta will solve anything.”

“It’s not just them,” Alecto said. “The Iron Horn is the seat of the Eccsleaziarchy in the east of the Empire. Outside of the capital, it is the largest concentration of a body that is now in open rebellion against imperial law. This means that the Iron Horn is currently in a state of insurrection, and I intend to kill two featherbeasts with one stone.”

Letraq and Dumane exchanged another look.

Alecto’s mouth cracked into the single most awful smile either of them had ever seen in their lives.

“Gentlemen, why the skeptical faces? I propose only that I be allowed to carry out my duty.”


	11. Orient

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So...! Long time no see, huh? Anyway [extremely Sinistar voice] BEWARE, I LIVE!
> 
> Instead of a quote for this chapter, I'm going to recommend "Redeemed," by DJ Shadow, as listening music. I believe it captures the ambience nicely.

Terezi jolted awake from unsettling dreams, gasping with surprise and sitting bolt upright at the hammer-blow of consciousness. The air was wrong, close and uncomfortable, cast into muddy shadow by the light of a guttering lantern. It took a moment of fighting down a rush of panic and sudden nausea for her to recognize that she had been lying on a ratty little cot inside a small enclosure made from canvas curtains hung from the ceiling. That explained the dreams at least — they were only to be expected from a soporless sleep.

Okay, not entirely soporless; her face was dabbed with the stuff, like a mudpack. Further applications had been made at her wrists — and here it was she discovered she’d been dressed in someone else’s clothes; the shirt was so loose it hung off one shoulder, and the moth-eaten cuffs of the trousers bunched up around her ankles with fabric to spare — and just below her throat, along her collarbone. Her glasses were missing, her cane as well.

What the hell was going on? Where was she? The chamber was familiar, but her head was too full of groggy haze for her to call specifics to mind. She felt like she’d been sleeping for a perigee, with her senses slowly coming back online from a long time spent away. There were noises coming from outside the chamber, the sound of a number of trolls murming quietly, moving about, with the occasional snore or clink of cutlery interspersed. To her right, a few shelves projected from the wooden wall, covered in bottles and phials, next to a cabinet containing more mysterious substances. The nagging sensation of familiarity grew more acute, but recognition remained, infuriatingly, just out of reach. She obviously hadn’t been captured by anyone, because although she had been stripped and disarmed, she doubted someone with malicious intent would bother to apply sopor to soothe her in her sleep, to say nothing of leaving her unshackled in such an insecure—

A sudden flare of agony in her midsection knocked her flat to the cot again, leaving her breathless and wide-eyed. She lay motionless, unable to breathe, waiting for the wave to crest.

Waves — the chamber was rocking gently, the timbers in the wall creaking.

She was on the _Incarnadine_ , in Kanaya’s little surgical theater in the berths.

No wonder she hurt, she must’ve reopened a wound from the fight with Alecto. God, that meant they were only still a few nights out of Ordred. But, wait, she hadn’t felt like this before, even immediately after the fight. And how could reopening a wound make her lose some indeterminate amount of time?

She hauled up the oversized shirt above her stomach, to inspect the source of the pain that was now diminishing to a mere throbbing ache that suffused her entire body.

Nnnnno. Something else was going on. She was pretty sure she would have remembered being run clean through like that. It must’ve happened some time ago, too, if the state of the bandages were anything to go by — in need of changing, but not soiled by active bleeding.

Okay... so. One mystery solved, handshakes all around, and another introduced.

She pulled herself upright again, then gradually managed to rise from the cot. She had to lean on the cabinet for support, but being on her feet represented a small triumph.

The curtains of the chamber twitched open, admitting Vriska entrance. The seagrift looked like death on legs, her exhaustion filling the close quarters with its smell. A light dusting of snow covered the shoulders of her greatcoat, already running to slush in the warmth of the berths. She stood, halted in midstride, staring slackjawed at Terezi for a moment, before catching the smaller troll up in a tight hug that sent another flare of pain through her guts.

“Thank God. Thank fucking God,” Vriska whispered.

“As heartwarming as this is,” Terezi croaked, “if you don’t let me go, I’m going to pass out again.”

Vriska released her with a suddenness that left Terezi wobbling, then hurriedly moved to help stablize her.

“Sorry! Shit! Here, on the cot, easy, eeeeeeeeasy—”

“Will you stop? I’m not a wiggler, I can sit down under my own power, thank—”

With perfect timing, her legs gave out and sent her thudding ass-first into the rickety cot.

“God’s fangs, why am I so weak?” she said, pushing herself up on one arm. Vriska hovered over her, uncertain what to do, biting her lower lip with her face set in an entirely uncharacteristic expression of concern.

“The fever took a lot out of you,” she said, “almost cooked your thinkpan. We had to lower you over the side of the ship in a sheet to cool you off a couple times.”

“Fever?” Terezi ran her fingers over the bandages on her stomach. “Someone stabbed me.”

“Yeah, the fucking screw got you bad, and the infection nearly finished you off.”

“The sc— Alecto? She’s alive?”

“Was.”

“Did I...”

Vriska knelt beside the cot and laid a hand on Terezi’s leg.

“You did. Almost the last thing you ever did, but you put her down.”

“I see. And where are we now?”

“Six nights out of the Iron Horn. The disputed territories. Can’t be much more specific than that; ain’t a whole lot of consequence out here.”

“Vriska,” Terezi said, “I don’t remember anything. Killing Alecto, I mean, or leaving the Horn. Come to think of it, I don’t remember getting there either.”

“Like I said, you were pretty out of it. Maybe it’ll start coming back once you’re up and about.”

Terezi let the thought hang for a while, mulling over the troublesome blank spot in her memory. She didn’t like it being there, its presence _offended_ her. She wanted it gone, and gone with a quickness.

Vriska watched as Terezi’s hand was gently laid on top of hers, fingers curling under her palm. She stared, stunned, looking for all the world as though some novel species of spider had dropped out of the sky to land on her.

“Help me up,” Terezi said.

“Wh-?” Vriska replied.

“Serket, pay attention.”

Vriska’s eyes snapped up to meet Terezi’s.

“What?”

“Help me up. I refuse to lie around like an invalid.”

“You _are_ an invalid.”

“Details. I’m going to walk this off if it kills me.”

“That ain’t really too remote a possibility, y’know.”

“Then we’ll deal with that situation as it arises.”

* * *

 

 

**Nights in the past...**

A cold wind whipped the waters of the Iron Horn into white-capped waves, blowing in foreboding thunderheads off the northeastern steppe. There would be rain soon, and the gutters of the great, bisected city would no doubt overflow again, turning the streets into wide, cobbled streams, flowing down to the strait.

Revenueravager Melcit, a rumpled, squat fellow, nearly indistinguishable as a troll under his oilskins, hunched his shoulders against the icy talons of the wind and peered glumly at the horizon as he paced the jetty. Images of water rising to the front steps of his cramped little respiteblock filled his head, and his boots seemed already heavy with anticipation of wading through the deluge. A glance at his pocket watch informed him that there were still two hours left in his shift, more than enough time for him to be stranded in the middle of the oncoming downpour.

Somewhere in the upper city, on the north side of the strait, a horn blatted tunelessly, raising the hairs on the back of his neck. The clowns were still at it over there. There weren’t as many corpses staked up along the waterfront over the last few nights, but that wasn’t saying very much. Somehow, the clerics and zealots of the Eccsleaziarchy always managed to find a few poor bastards to amuse themselves with. Melcit wondered, distantly, how long it would be until they ran out of legislacerators — the circuit courtblock that once stood in the upper city could only have employed so many — and what would happen when they did.

The wind kicked up again, driving Melcit deeper into his coat. From the east this time, howling between the enormous towers that bracketed the strait where it opened into the ocean and gave the place its name. The lower tower loomed over the southern shore, rising above the city to nearly ten stories, solitary in its prominence. The upper tower, by contrast, emerged from the crumbling, stony bulk of the medieval fortress that had watched over the northern side of the city for time immemorial, known as the Citadel. And strung between them, spanning the breadth of the strait, was the chain, intended originally to protect the city from attack by sea, but now employed to seal off the city from escape to the east.

Not that there was much to seal anymore, Melcit thought, looking over the expanse of the near-deserted port. Almost everyone who could flee had fled back to the west.

Melcit’s thoughts were interrupted by a shout from the watchtower that rose up from the foot of the jetty: “Lanterns!”

Melcit frowned, puzzled. Who the hell would be inbound, with the Horn in its present state? Surely word must have gotten around to the entire Empire.

“Are you sure?” Melcit called back.

“Positive! They’re signalling to dock!”

“God’s fangs, what idiots,” Melcit said to himself.

“Shall I signal them in?”

“Why not? It isn’t as if we’re short on space.”

There came a rattling sound as the semaphore lanterns hanging from the watch tower were reoriented and lit.

“Dock seventeen, Melcit,” called the watchtroll.

“Muster the militia,” Melcit called back, “we’ve got a job to do.”

* * *

 

The ship at dock seventeen announced itself as the _Mixopterus_ , a battered corvette with the trappings of a Principalities craft. Melcit gave it a once over as he approached, trailing the jogging militiatrolls. Yes, he thought, that enclosed gun deck, unusual on a smaller warship, and shallow draught marked it as coming from the shipyards at Grozim, sure as anything. An older configuration, but unmatched for speed by all but the top of the line Admiralty craft.

The crew of the _Mixopterus_ was arrayed in loose, suspicious looking groups around the topdeck as Melcit boarded. They were, beyond a doubt, some of the most dubious trolls Melcit had ever clapped eyes on. He was plainly dealing with some kind of mercenary outfit, and suddenly, even backed as he was by a squad of armed militia, he didn’t feel too optimistic about the odds of walking away should the situation turn ugly. The sword hanging from his belt began to feel more like an anchor – he’d never been very good with blades, and found them to be more of an incitement than a deterrent.

Oh well, best to get on with things. He cleared his throat and spoke in a loud, hopefully authoritative, voice.

“I am Melcit of the Imperial Office of Assize. This ship will be inspected before being allowed to make harbor here. If the captain of this craft will please step forward, we will make this quick.”

The door to the quarterdeck cabins opened and banged shut, and the crew parted to allow two trolls to pass. One was a short tealblood, clad in fine silks, with a purposeful stride and an unsettling, glassy-eyed look to her. She was laden with tacky bangles, rings, and other ornamentation, her horns covered with delicately wrought golden caps that added nearly a foot to her height. The other was a tall, menacing blueblood, plainly dressed, her arms left bare to accentuate a collection of scars and lean muscles. Her left eye was hidden behind an eyepatch, and from within the coarse braids of her hair came the glint of fishhooks catching the lanternlight. Her horns were topped with much more modest caps than those of her partner — mere dull iron globes, the mark of a bondstroll in the Pricipalities.

“Greetings, Mister Melcit,” said the tealblood, with a jaunty little wave of her hand. “Oprichnikarcerator Morgna speaks to you now.”

Melcit was broadly familiar with the title; the Principalities had no formal body comparable to the Cruelest Bar, instead relying on a corps of half-civil servants, half-mercenaries to bring wanted trolls to justice. Little wonder that their empire was forever on the brink of dissolution. Her voice was underlaid with the harsh hoarfrost accent and clumsy turn of phrase common to Principalities trolls attempting to speak the Imperial dialect. Melcit gave her a perfunctory bow, then extended his hand.

“Papers, please, madam.”

A fat leather envelope was produced and passed to him. Melcit opened it and spent several minutes in quiet consideration of the contents. The _Mixopterus_ , a gunship-for-hire out of the Principalities port of Dovhny, on assignment to hunt down a seagrift of some repute. Based on the lading records from Gerhae, Melcit assumed they attemptng to return home. Commanding officer, one Vanyae Morgna, her identification document stamped with the seal of the Oprichnikarcerators: a barkbeast nipping at the heel of a fleeing leg. Other officers included a yellowblood psychic, rating four, common enough among ships of war, a jadeblood priestess of _Magna Mater_ , the Great Mother, and...

Melcit glanced up at the blueblood. “A pit fighter?” he said, skeptically.

Morgna laughed. “Pet imbecile might fit better. My bodyguard.”

Melcit took a step closer to the blueblood, gesturing for his militia retinue to stay alert. Something about her sparked a memory deep in his mind. He’d seen her face somewhere before.

“Iactia is it?”

The blueblood's eye narrowed, obviously sizing him up for killing.

“Do not waste your time, sir,” Morgna said, still tittering to herself, “She does not speak. Barbarian from the steppe tribes, her. Scarcely better than savages, but they have their uses.” She then gave Melcit a salacious wink and trailed a finger along Iactia’s bicep.

“Could you please have her raise her eyepatch, madam?”

Morgna spoke a command in the Principalities dialect, and Iactia lifted a hand to turn the patch up.

Melcit flinched from the sight of a scorched, sightless, red eye staring back at him. Morgna’s laugh rose to a raw, cutting volume.

“Ugly, no?” she gasped. “Not even ugliest thing about her! She kills many trolls, but fear not! She does not kill until I tell her.”

Melcit shot his cuffs and cleared his throat again.

“Charming,” he said. Turning, he handed the packet of documents off to one of the militia. “Take that to the savant, have him run them against the registry.”

“ _Sav-aaant_?” Morgna said, rolling the word around on her tongue. “I know this word not. What means it?”

“A conditioned telepath, keyed into a collective in the capital. Show one of them something, the rest of them will know immediately about it and can pull it up at will. Very handy for record-keeping.”

“I believe I understand. To think, in Dovhny we get by with mere featherbeast couriers.”

“With your permission, I will search your craft now. If you have anything to declare that you have forgotten to mention on your paperwork, now would be the time to do so.”

“Ha!” Morgna barked, more a declaration than an actual laugh. “You expect contraband, yes? Take me for smuggler? Suspect that _maaaaaaaaybe_ little Morgna has heaping load of shadeleaf hiding in secret compartment in hold?”

“The thought occurred to me.”

Morgana broke into another giggling fit and wagged a finger at him.

“You have nasty mind there, Mister Melcit. Suspicious, diligent, I like that. But, no, merely bounty hunters, we. You may search my ship at your discretion. Alas, I can promise no excitement.”

With Morgna’s go-ahead, the militia fanned out through the ship. The upper decks were given a cursory inspection, out of deference to the owner — the Iron Horn couldn’t hope to continue being a hub of trade if every ship that passed through had its living quarters torn apart in the process of making port. When it came to the hold, though, it was understood that no punches would be pulled. The militia went about their duties with gusto, digging through crates and barrels as Melcit followed behind them at a slow stroll, conspicuously setting his feet down with more force than necessary. About halfway down the length of the hold, his step struck a hollow note on the wood. He stopped, raised his foot, and stomped on the spot again, the sound reverberating.

“Oprichnikarcerator Morgna,” he said, “are you absolutely certain there is nothing you wish to tell me?”

Iactia’s lip curled, exposing her fangs. A gesture from Morgna, however, held the pit-fighter at bay.

“I say again, Mister Melcit, I have nothing to hide.”

“So be it. Corporal, a prybar, if you would be so kind.”

A militiatroll stepped forward to hand Melcit the implement, and Melcit knelt by the hollow spot in the deck. It took a few tries to work the prybar between the planks, but once he had accomplished as much, it took only a small amount of force to lever open the concealed hatch he had found.

“A smuggler’s hold,” Melcit said, “maybe not the oldest ruse in the codex, but fairly venerable. Corporal, get a light down there.”

A bullseye lantern was produced and shined down into the hidden compartment, revealing...

Nothing, besides a few scurrying vermin fleeing the light.

Melcit’s frown deepened at the sound of Morgna’s high-pitched laugh.

“I warned you, sir!” she cried, “I told you about—”

“Thank you, madam, you have made your point.”

They adjourned to the topdeck, Melcit rankling the whole way at Morgna’s laughter. While he would never complain about a lack of complications, her delight in his discomfort was beginning to get on his nerves. He found himself hoping that the savant would find a problem with her papers that would allow him to inconvenience her, if even in the smallest way. Alas, he faced further disappointment on that front.

“They check out, sir,” the returning militiatroll said. “Savant says that their documentation is a little old, but matches existing records.”

Melcit sighed. “Very well,” he said, “Oprichnikarcerator Morgna, welcome to the Iron Horn, for all the good that does you. If you want my advice, make your visit a short one.”

The two trolls watched the revenueravager depart, taking the militia with him.

“Told you the smuggler’s hold would be a bad idea,” said Terezi.

“Okay, okay. You were right,” Vriska replied. “Dunno why I bothered getting that thing installed; I’ve used it, like, once.”

Terezi craned her head back, facing towards the mainmast crow’s nest, and called “How you doing up there, Karkat?”

A head appeared over the edge of the nest and a voice called back, “Oh, fine. Fine. Fucking dandy. Just terrified out of my mind and feeling like I might puke up a substantial quantity of everything I’ve eaten in my entire life.”

“Sways a bit, doesn’t it?” Vriska shouted. “Don’t worry, you probably won’t fall out. I mean, unless this wind really kicks up in the next few minutes.”

“I don’t know what I did to deserve being trapped on a boat with you two, but whatever it is, I sincerely and thoroughly regret it,” Karkat replied, before sinking back to the bottom of the crow’s nest.

“So how’d you know they wouldn’t look up there?” Vriska said, absentmindedly twisting a braid around her finger. “Man, these stupid things are going to take the rest of my life to get out.”

“I didn’t, but there’s not enough room up there to hide very much and I guessed that they wouldn’t be interested in trying to find small quantities of anything. Why risk a fight with the entire crew over caegar-ante nonsense? As for the braids, I think they look good on you.”

A hint of cerulean crept into Vriska's cheeks. “You think so?"

“Yes. Very piratical. Maybe get rid of the hooks so you’re less of a hazard to be around, but that’s a project for when we have more time on our hands.”

The wind shifted again, blowing from the northeast, out of the upper city. Terezi turned to face it, breathing deeply. It smelled of putrefaction, sickly sweet, and damp ashes. The scent chilled her in a way that not even the imagined ghosts of Shipbreaker Bay had managed. The Iron Horn, like the Empire as a whole, teetered on the edge of something unimaginably horrible.

Another fire flared on the north bank of the strait, chanting voices carried on the wind to her ears.

_Woop, woop!_

_Kill the screws!_

_Woop, woop!_

_Cut their throats!_

_Woop, woop!_

_Kill the screws!_

And so on, and so forth.

Teetered? No, tipped inexorably. 

“Miss Pyrope and I are going ashore!” Vriska shouted, addressing the crew as she shrugged her way into her coat, huddling deep into the thick fabric against the wind. “The rest of you, keep to your watches; we are not here on _leisure_! Mister Captor has command in my absence; stay prepared to depart on short notice. No one, I mean absolutely no one, is to be permitted aboard. And someone get the Militant out of the crow’s nest.”

* * *

 

The lower city was a crypt, disconcerting after so much time spent in ports that thrummed with life. The streets were largely deserted, bereft of the vendors and crowds that normally would have populated them. Shop slates banged in the wind, the few passers-by that were present moved in small, hurried groups. The Iron Horn allegedly contained several hundred thousand citizens, but you would never be able to tell. Fear reigned supreme now, more oppressive and omnipresent than the Cruelest Bar could ever dream of being.

They wandered for a while, gathering their bearings, discussing courses of action, wondering at the desolation that had befallen what had once been a bustling city. Overhead, the clouds broke and a cold rain began to fall. Terezi pulled her coat tighter around herself. She wished dearly that she could remove Governor Barsid’s lenses long enough to feel the air on her eyes for just a moment, but the sight of a wall covered in wanted posters bearing her and Vriska’s mugshots put paid to that thought.

“At least they got my horns right this time,” Vriska said, examining the posters in passing. She reached up to touch the caps that hid their distinctive shape.

“Stop fiddling with them,” Terezi whispered.

“They _itch_.”

“No, they don’t. There’s nothing up there to itch. They’re made of the same stuff as your hair.”

“Well I say they itch and I think I'd know better than you. Where the hell are we going, anyway?”

Terezi halted a crossroads, turning her head slowly from side to side, smelling the air.

“I was posted here for a while, as a neophyte,” she said. “In that time I came to recognize that there were certain individuals who, while not technically abiding by the spirit of the law, never broke the letter. These individuals keep one foot in the shadows, just enough to be valuable to the legislacerator who knows how to leverage them. We are going to meet one of them, with whom I have cultivated a professional relationship.”

“A snitch, is what you’re describing.”

“Broadly.”

“I fucking hate snitches.”

“Predictably.”

“And this strikes you as a good idea.”

“No, but the troll in question is not unlike your Mister Gryggs. He knows things, and isn’t above sharing, given the right motivation.”

* * *

 

**Nights in the future...**

The spoon stopped halfway to Terezi’s mouth. A bit of porridge, mixed with generous amounts of honey and a dash of Gisigo’s “special health tonic” for flavor, dripped from the utensil and spattered on the chart room table.

“Oh, God, I remember this,” she said. “Rhenon.”

“Hey, great, I knew you’d start getting your memory back soon.”

“I wish I wasn’t now. Why the hell did I even consider going to him?”

Vriska shrugged. “Not like we were long on options. You were working with what you had.”

Terezi dropped her spoon into the bowl of porridge. It landed with a splat and began sinking.

“You want me to stop?” Vriska said.

“No. I may as well get all this out of the way now. Continue, please. It’s coming back to me, but I want all the details filled in.”

* * *

 

**Nights in the past...**

There was very little fanfare to the place — just a battered two-story building abutting a larger warehouse, in a kicked-around district at the edge of the lower city’s docks. Dark windows faced the street, and a slate hanging above the door bore the words:

**M. Rhenon & Assoc.**

**Imports/Exports**

**Dry Goods, Sundries**

“Doesn’t look like anyone’s in,” Vriska said. “Maybe he already skipped town.”

“And abandon his stock? Not likely. He’d sooner die.”

Terezi knocked at the door. No response; not so much as a twitched curtain. A second attempt met with similar results.

“You’re not fooling anyone, Rhenon!” Terezi shouted. “I’m wise to you! Now open your damn door or I’ll have my associate kick it down!”

This got a reaction. In short order, there came the sound of many locks on the other side of the door being unlatched, followed by the door opening just wide enough, still secured by a chain, to let Rhenon peer out at them.

“Nice duds, Pyrope,” he said. “Hitting up a costume ball later?”

“Yes, Rhenon. I’m going as a wet, irritable woman. Now let us in.”

“Like hell; you’re wanted. Give me one good reason.”

“As a show of gratitude for all the times I didn’t arrest you for tangential connections to all manner of criminal enterprises?”

“Try harder.”

Terezi held up a coinpurse containing a considerable portion of her dwindling funds.

“Because I’m willing to pay you for information?”

Rhenon continued peering silently, then shut the door to unlatch the chain.

“Let’s make this quick,” he said, having reopened it.

Inside was a shabby storefront containing very little besides a counter with a thick ledger on top of it, opened to show a sequence of numbers in diminishing order and written in an increasingly unsteady hand. Scattered here and there were empty bottles of, judging by the smell on Rhenon’s breath, supremely foul liquor. As for Rhenon himself, he had a great deal in common with his establishment — shabby, disreputable, coming slowly apart at the seams despite being scarcely of his middle sweeps.

Having let the two women into his sanctuary, Rhenon planted himself behind the counter, as though shielding himself from them. One hand gripped the edge with white knuckles, and the other set to drumming its fingers on the surface. With nowhere to sit, Terezi and Vriska found themselves standing awkwardly before him, like recruits lined up for inspection.

“So,” he said, “what’ll it take to get you to leave?”

“We need to get past the chain,” Terezi replied. “How do we go about doing that?”

Rhenon scoffed. “Shit, I’ll tell you that for free. Controls are in the upper tower. Hope you feel like doing some infiltration work, girls, because ain’t nobody lowering it for no one right now. The clowns run the show at the moment, and they are in a hell of a mood.”

Terezi sighed and rubbed at the raw spot on the bridge of her nose. “I figured as much; nothing is ever simple. So how do we get over there?”

Rhenon’s fingers stopped drumming, then started again. “Now that is gonna cost you.”

Terezi’s coinpurse landed on the counter with a jingle.

“I believe that should be sufficient,” she said.

Rhenon took a moment to dump out and count up the contents. Satisfied, he swept them back into the purse.

“You can’t,” he said.

“You piece of—” Vriska started before being cut off by Terezi’s cane rapping against the warped floor boards.

“Don’t jerk me around, Rhenon,” she said. “If a smuggler in this town stubs his toe, you’re the first one to find out. Your drinking buddies represent a who’s who of dirtbags and unwholesome elements. Do not tell me that you don’t know of anyone who can get us into the upper city.”

“Well, Pyrope, if there was any of the old irregulars left in this city, I might be able to help you. But unfortunately, as you might have noticed, things are kind of quiet at the moment, due mostly to the fact that we’re all waiting for the clowns to swoop down and kill us. Now is there anything else you wanted to know?”

Terezi gritted her teeth. She hadn’t anticipated this.

“There’s absolutely nothing you can think of?” she said.

“Look, the last guy who tried was sent back over the course of multiple nights, starting with his feet. He was probably alive right up until they got to his waist. Nobody, I mean nobody, is going anywhere near that place. They have mobs of crazies patrolling the waterfront, looking for anyone stupid enough to try to sneak in. It’s a god damn fortress. They’re holed up over there, having their fun. But what happens when their fun runs out? What happens when they run out of screws to torture?

Rhenon’s voice rose to a shout.

“What happens, Pyrope? They’re going to get in their barges, and their galleys, and their whatever the hells, and they’re going to come over here! You know what happens when the clergy get pissed!”

A prickling started in Terezi’s palms. Something was amiss. Rhenon’s hand, the one not currently involved in tapping out a beat to quarters on the counter, had dipped out of sight behind the counter. Vriska had tensed up, and the faintest scratching of her mental probing was skittering over Terezi’s thinkpan.

“Compose yourself, Rhenon,” she said, trying to stall for time in the face of whatever was bearing down on her.

“Compose myself? Everyone knows what’s going on, why the clowns are so riled! You killed us, sure as anything! You might not’ve put the gun to our heads or pulled the trigger, but we’re gonna die and it’s your fucking fault!”

The next few seconds passed, for Terezi, with glacial slowness:

Rhenon’s hand emerging from behind the counter, clutching a stubby blunderbuss with an especially wide muzzle, a configuration colloquially known among the criminal element as a _roomsweeper_.

Vriska, pistol already held at arm’s length, far faster than Rhenon, firing.

Her bullet taking Rhenon in the elbow.

Rhenon, falling, screaming, weapon clattering to the floor and discharging on impact, tearing a gouge out of the wall wide enough to encompass both women, had it been pointed at them.

Vriska mantling the counter, sword drawn, landing heavily on his chest.

Time returned to its normal pace, leaving Terezi with the realization that she could very easily be dead right now, given different circumstances.

“Word of advice, not that I see you having many opportunities left to make use of it,” Vriska said, grinding the heel of her boot into Rhenon’s sternum, “if you’re considering bushwhacking a telepath, _try not to think so loudly about it_.”

“Go to hell,” Rhenon spat.

“So what was your plan, snitch? Considering turning our heads in to the clowns in exchange for mercy?” Vriska said, leaning over to sneer at him. “Well, I happen to like my head where it is. Yours, on the other hand...”

Her saber shone dreadfully as she raised it in preparation to strike.

“Stop, Vriska,” Terezi said.

Vriska turned to her, jaw slack with disbelief.

“Seriously? I know you got some hoity-toity _reservations_ , but if this guy had been a little more cagey with his internal monologue—”

“I know, and I’m still telling you to stop.”

She joined them behind the counter, sitting on her haunches next to Rhenon as Vriska hesitantly withdrew.

“Look at him,” she said, breathing in the stale scent of fear mingling with those of liquor on his breath and blood staining his sleeve. “He’s terrified out of his mind.”

“Yeah, for good reason. Better be a little skittish if you take a shot at me and miss,” Vriska spat.

“Rhenon,” Terezi said, ignoring her, “look at how generous I’m being right now. I’m not even angry. Care to guess why?”

Rhenon said nothing.

“It’s because I know you’re too venal and cowardly to harbor any kind of killer instinct beyond the sort that comes from overwhelming mental duress. Right now, I don’t believe I have it in me to punish someone for the crime of desperation. Instead, I’m going to ask you, in the spirit of matching the generosity I am displaying, if you’re certain you can think of no way to cross to the upper city.”

Rhenon propped himself up on his elbows.

“There might be one way,” he said, hesitantly. “I don’t know of anything, but I can think of some people who might.”

“Good enough.”

“There’s a leveller cell in this city. Mostly they used to focus on sneaking people through to the disputed territories, getting them to some little communes they have scattered around the islands out there. They might have some tricks up their sleeves, but... thing is, they’re radicals.”

“What’s that mean?” Vriska said.

“It means, given the opportunity, they’re as likely to kill us as to talk to us,” Terezi replied.

“Can’t say I blame them. Regardless, I ain’t a fan of that.”

“Nor am I, but what choice do we have? Can you arrange a meeting, Rhenon?”

Rhenon nodded slowly. “I’ll give it a shot.”

“Thank you. Send word for me at the usual place.” Terezi scooped the coinpurse off the floor, where it had fallen during the brief shootout, then took Rhenon’s hand, pried the fingers open, and dropped it into his palm.

“That should be enough to get you and at least some of your merchandise out of the city,” she said, ignoring Vriska’s outraged choking noise. “Don’t be an idiot; no amount of unsold stock will save you if the clergy decide to go marauding.”

Terezi felt Rhenon’s eyes on them as they left, his confusion palpable to even those without her senses. Maybe, she thought as the door clicked shut behind her, it would have been wiser, in a coldly calculating way, to have let Vriska dispose of him. There was nothing saying he couldn’t run off to the authorities and inform on her. He was, after all, a snitch.

And yet, she didn’t care. It wasn’t as if anything he had accused her of was inaccurate, and at this point she couldn’t hold his fear for his life against him. The least she could do would be to acknowledge her responsibility for his predicament, and try to make some small restitution.

 _Congratulations_ , a voice in her head hissed, _now you’ve slain two cities. This is getting to be a_ habit.

Be quiet.

* * *

 

**Nights in the future...**

“I still cannot believe you paid that guy for almost blowing us away,” Vriska said. She had been following Terezi around the ship like a broody featherbeast, making concerned clucking noises at every stumble and misstep as Terezi found her footing again. Still more annoying had been the treatment from the rest of the crew — they shrunk away from her, as though afraid to bar her way. More than once she heard whispers passing between them as they watched her pass.

Terezi didn’t answer, busy as she was poring over the map unrolled on the chart room table.

“So this is our current location,” she said, jabbing a finger at a patch of unremarkable ocean among the islands and archipelagos that made up the landmasses of the disputed territories.

Sollux cleared his throat and moved her hand a few inches to the right.

“That’s a little closer to the mark,” he said, “based on the star charts. Just about the actual middle of nowhere, by most reckonings.”

Terezi grimaced.

“We’re well behind schedule, then,” she said.

“That’s putting it mildly,” Sollux said.

“A pit stop will be necessary, to see if we’re wasting our time by going to the prearranged meeting place. Can you find the location of...” Terezi paused, hunting through her memory for a particular name that eluded her in her current state.

“Of...?” Sollux prompted, gesturing with his calipers.

Goddamnit, if she couldn’t recall the name of this place, they might full well be screwed. Isle... no, Island...

“Nezbor Island,” she said, as the name abruptly snapped into focus.

Sollux nodded and pulled a navigational codex off a shelf. He spent some time paging through it, muttering to himself.

“And why are we looking for Nezbor Island?” Vriska said. 

“A contact was provided there,” Terezi said. “They will be able to tell us if we need to reassess our destination.”

“And if we do need to reassess?” Vriska said.

“Things get more complicated.”

“Got it,” Sollux said, from his position, hunched over the map with calipers speared squarely in the middle of a tiny blob of land at the fringe of an island chain on the northwestern edge of the territories.

Terezi bent over the map by his side.

“Don’t even think about licking it,” he said.

“I need to go ashore there,” Terezi said after taking a deep whiff of the place.

“Do you think you’re well enough?” Vriska said. “You can barely manage the length of the ship without falling over.”

Terezi’s fist struck the table.

“That doesn’t enter into it, Serket. I have a job to carry out, and if my legs prove difficult then they will just have to be _made to function_ against their will.”

“I don’t think it works like that,” Sollux said.

Terezi fixed him with an unseeing glare.

“Which only demonstrates, Mister Captor, that you lack conviction.”

 

* * *

 

It was some time later that Karkat found Terezi leaning heavily against the railing, looking out over the trackless night of the sea, over which gusts of wind drew contrails and whorls in the gentle snowfall. They were far to the north now, northeast of the Iron Horn, the islands they passed covered in pine and conifer. He announced his presence with a cough. When that failed to get a reaction, he drew closer to her, feet crunching in the thin film of snow that dusted the deck and said:

“Hey, can we talk?”

“I don’t know, Karkat,” Terezi replied without turning, “can we? I don’t have the energy right now to—”

“I’m not here to start an arguement,” he interjected. His voice, for a change, was low, missing the aggravated, hysterical edge that prefaced a tirade.

Terezi slowly, carefully reoriented herself to place her back against the railing.

“I guess we can talk, then,” she said.

“How are you doing?”

“I’ve been better.”

“Fucking obviously. But, I mean, more specifically...”

“I’m stronger than I was when I first woke up, my memory is returning in drips and drabs, and if this trend continues I imagine it won’t be too long before I’m back to normal.”

“Good, that’s good. You scared the hell out of us.”

“Us?”

Karkat made an irritated noise and waved a hand in the general direction of the quarterdeck. “Us. Her and me.”

“Vriska?”

“Yeah. I still think she’s the most obnoxious and godawful thing I’ve ever seen walk upright, but to her credit she was pulling twenty hour nights while you were out. I’d watch you while she ran the ship, then we’d trade off and I’d catch some sleep. Can’t say when exactly she found time to get any; I know Kanaya threatened to drug her at one point.”

“Aw, that’s sweet of you two. I’m touched.”

Karkat shrugged, pulled his ratty cloak tighter around him, and glowered up at the sky.

“Least I could do, after what you did for me.”

“So you aren’t mad at me about that anymore?”

“Don’t think I ever was. Think I was more frustrated that I needed to be saved, made me feel... I don’t know, worthless?”

“You aren’t worthless, Karkat.”

“Oh yeah? How have I contributed to anything besides making everyone’s lives harder? You almost got yourself killed on my account, and all it feels like I’m accomplishing is running away."

“We’ve been over this. The Empire isn’t safe.”

“Yeah I know! And that’s why I feel like I shouldn’t be running away! But I’m too lousy and too much of a shivering God damned pansy to do what I need to be doing! I wish I could reach through time and slap the whine out of my past self’s grubchute, because holy _shit_ do I infuriate myself.”

“Similar to how I don’t have the energy to argue with you, Vantas, I’m afraid I don’t have the energy to proctor your feud with yourself.”

Karkat put his face in his hands, let out a little scream, then composed himself.

“You’re right, you’re absolutely right, I’m sorry. I’m just... fuckssake Terezi, try not to push yourself so hard, okay? I know you’re fundamentally incapable of not being a hardassed, terrifying person, but please don’t die on account of me.”

Terezi fidgeted awkwardly — while she’d never actually needed her cane, it had given her something to do with her hands at times like these. And now, without it, she found herself slightly out of sorts.

“I’ll take that under advisement,” she said.

“Fuck you! Don’t give me that non-answer crap! I’m serious, next time you find yourself thinking about doing something stupid to further this weird little mission of yours, maybe remind yourself that I am so, _sooo_ not worth it, and that I should do a double-backflip straight up a musclebeast’s gapesphincter for being an idiot who can’t look after himself.”

Karkat made to storm off, but was stopped by Terezi’s reply.

“Thank you for your concern, Karkat.”

He made a rough noise in his throat, somewhere between a grunt and a chuckle.

“Don’t mention it.”

* * *

 

 

**Nights in the past...**

Terezi had to hand it to him, Rhenon worked fast when he wanted to. The night following their encounter, word arrived at the usual location, a dead-drop hidden behind a brick in an alley, that a meeting had been arranged. The note directed Terezi and Vriska to courtyard in the depths of the city, secreted away between hivestems with broken windows.

"If you keep messing with it, you're gonna break it," Vriska said, drawing attention to the repeated  _click-click, click-click_ of Terezi restlessly toying with the deployment mechanism of the pistol acquired from the Vennah indigo. She didn't like having the thing attached to her wrist; it chafed relentlessly, and just having the thing touch her made her feel uneasy. But given the foolishness they were about to embark on, having an ace in the hole could prove essential.

They hadn't been waiting long before three figures entered the courtyard and crossed towards them. They all wore dull gray cloaks to protect against the rain, and two of them looked much the same as the other radical Sufferites Terezi had encountered in the past — severe people, who meant what they said when they stated that they would rather die than betray their comrades. The third, however, was not at all what she had been expecting — a female rustblood with the widest grin Terezi would ever encounter unless she somehow suddenly manifested the ability to use mirrors. 

"Hey guys!" the grinning rustblood chirped. "We heard you're looking to try and do something really, really, really stupid."

"You heard correctly," Terezi said.

The rustblood clapped her hands. "Great! You know, based on everything I've heard about you, I think you might be able to help us with something in the process."

"What kind of something?" Vriska said, suspiciously.

"Oh nothing huge, we can talk about it on the way. But hey, let's get to know each other a little first."

She thrust a hand towards Terezi. This drew a muffled comment from one of the radicals. The other could only shrug in reply.

"Aradia Megido. I'm a really big fan."

Terezi shook it, a skeptical look crossing her face.

"A fan of..."

"Your work, of course! Watching this whole place start coming apart has been amazing. Some serious _Decline and Fall of the Trolllatin Empire_ stuff."

Terezi pulled her hand back with considerably delicacy.

"Oh, wonderful," Vriska said, "she's insane."


	12. Redux

 

**Perigees in the past...**

Port Ordred suffered during the light season, as much as any legitimate harbor in the world. Much like Vennah or Gerhae, business slowed as the sailors stranded in the town ran through their savings and grew increasingly tetchy waiting for the captains of their ships to stumble across a business opportunity where the potential profit outweighed the difficulties of traveling. Out on the open ocean, judicious use of daycloaks lessened the damage of the sun's rays, but there was nothing that could be done about the exhausting heat except carrying extra water and quietly begging the Handmaid to favor someone else with her attention for one more night.

Fights, already common in the outlaw port, became more frequent as tempers grew hot and sword arms itched for action. It was a prime season for petty disagreements to blossom into bloody vendettas that, if not managed carefully by the hand of the Governor, threatened to consume the town. This sweep in particular found Governor Barsid with his work cut out for him: an unusually large number of crews were weathering out the season, and it seemed that every single one of them had slighted the others somehow in the past. Already, scarcely two perigees in, there had been several incidents at the docks that left ships in flames and dead trolls strewed throughout the streets in the dozens.

“I tell you, the Marquise would sort these bastards out, one and all. Set a few to swinging from a yardarm and there'd be no more of this nonsense.” he remarked once to Murvad after a particularly bad night. “What has the world come to when there isn't even honor among thieves?”

“Couldn't tell you sir,” Murvad replied, standing at attention and wishing with all her might that she wasn't wearing a powdered wig in such muggy weather. “But if you want some swinging to happen, it'd be my pleasure.”

Barsid gave the offer some thought. The number of individuals with whom he intended to have Very Serious Chats had long ago outstripped the time at his disposal, and the idea of having Murvad go around and quietly garrote everyone was tempting.

“No,” he said. “I fear that would be admitting defeat.”

With Ordred having become such a powder keg, there remained only one place in the town where a troll could be guaranteed that their night would not be interrupted by a sudden fight to the death: the Hive of the Blue Roses. Within its walls, a relative peace was maintained by the watchful eyes and heavy hands of its security force, the crushers. At first this made it even more popular than it normally was, but now, with pockets across Ordred emptying and coin purses growing thin, business had flagged badly. Bad enough that by now one could even swing one's arms without the certainty of hitting another troll. Bad enough that one could whisper to a neighbor and expect to be heard.

Bad enough that the sound of the doors opening drew attention to the latest customer. This attention was quickly directed elsewhere once its owners recognized who they were looking at – clad entirely in hues of orange without an inch of skin showing, hood pulled low over her face, a pointed lack of horns. Most of them knew that bad things happened to those who gawped at for too long or otherwise got on her nerves, such as waking up one evening to find themselves on a whaling vessel bound for the polar seas with no recollection of how they got there. Most of the rest, those not in the know of such things, got the hint when their eyes started watering and they had to ask themselves if there had been a second there where her robes had flickered and become the kind of black you only see between stars. The last few dense souls followed up in the rear the first time her shadow twisted and deformed for a terrible instant into something that conjured the unnerving image of tentacles rising from the depths of a sea trench.

Suffice to say, by the time she made her way to one table in particular and took a seat opposite its sole occupant, she may as well have been invisible.

“I hope this spot isn't taken,” she said.

The occupant in question, Captain Vriska Serket of the _Chelicerate Incarnadine_ , having given the woman little consideration before now, looked up at her visitor. It was uncommon for this woman to seek out interaction with others, preferring instead to only favor those who paid for her time. Despite her reputation, her abilities at prognostication were highly sought after. There were many who passed through Ordred that were willing to part with the few coins she demanded and tolerate her gleeful insistence on being unnerving to get some small taste of what the future held for them.

Vriska was not one of these people. She'd never been terribly impressed by second-hand recollections of experiences with the woman. Nevertheless, she had to credit her ability to command respect from the types of troll that frequented Ordred.

“It's all yours,” Vriska said with a wave of her hand. In the warmth of the light season, she had been forced to set aside her beloved greatcoat in exchange for a thinner, waist-length one that she had pried off the corpse of a captain of the Admiralty and modified to her liking. These modifications included tearing one sleeve off at the bicep for reasons clear only to her, much to the chagrin of her ship's mediculler-slash-seamstress. A bandoleer across her chest carried her infamous octet of pistols.

“So, you're that Seer from down by the docks, huh?” 

“I assume so. All I ever hear is whispers, 'there goes that Seer,' so logically I must be 'that Seer.' Perhaps I should change my name to 'There Goes That Seer' to clarify the issue.”

“If you don't like it, then tell me your name.”

“No.”

“Why?”

“Can't or won't, does it matter?”

“If no one can know your name for whatever fucking reason, do you really get to complain that nobody uses it?”

“And if you are powerless to change the weather, do you really get to complain about it?”

Vriska made an irritated noise in the back of her throat, knocked back the dregs of the drink she had been nursing for the past half-hour, and slammed the the glass down on the table.

“Alright, lady, Seer, whatever, look, if you came here just to annoy me...”

The Seer laughed, steepling her fingers. “Is that what I'm doing? My apologies. Being vaguely irritating is my only true vice, and I have an unfortunate habit of indulging without meaning to.”

“Really? Being a total pill is what does it for you?”

“Well, that and a nice madeira. My mother was fond of it too, you see, and the smell reminds me of her.”

Vriska blinked, letting the statement pass unremarked. It was common knowledge in Ordred that the Seer was probably not a troll, but nobody was interested in pressing her for further details.

“Mostly I was curious to see you,” the Seer continued.

Vriska spread her arms, as though unveiling a parlor trick. “Alright, here I am. Curiosity satisfied, I hope.”

“Not quite. Your mediculler has mentioned you quite a few times in passing and I– ”

“Wait, you're in cahoots with Maryam? What the hell?”

“Cahoots is such a strong word. We've run into each other off and on, and a rapport has developed.”

“What are you getting up to?”

The Seer shrugged. “Do you really consider it your business what your crew does when not carrying out your commands?

“When their extracurriculars involve gossiping about me with strange mystical assholes, it does.”

“Then I'll spare you the nitty-gritty of discussions that distinctly do not concern you to say that my interest was piqued by the possibility of meeting someone so patently doomed as yourself.”

Vriska snorted, despite herself. “Okay, okay. You got me. I've been called a lotta things, but that's a new one. Most people just resort to 'bitch.'”

The Seer's hood shifted ever so slightly, conveying a wry expression through the medium of fabric. “The word fails to do justice to the picture I've had painted for me. I've been given the impression of a woman who would cut off her own head at the suggestion that it would aggravate someone, and who would survive the experience if only to compound the insult. Would you call that fair?”

“Depends on who it would aggravate.”

“Based on what I've heard, anyone at all would suffice.”

If Vriska had an answer to this, it was cut off by the sound of the Blue Roses' front door opening and closing, echoing through the stillness within the building. She turned in her seat, spotted the newcomer, then spun back around, pulled her hat low over her face, and slouched down in her chair.

“Fuck,” she muttered.

“Trouble?” the Seer said.

“I owe her money.”

“Ah.”

Footsteps approached from behind, and a woman with a face done up to emphasize a pair of what the Seer, and literally no one else in the town, would describe as “imploring puppy-dog eyes” clapped a hand on Vriska's shoulder.

“Well well, if it isn't Captain Deadbeat,” she said.

“Ostina,” Vriska said, “Funny seeing you here.”

“Isn't it? Real barrel of laughs all around, for sure. More importantly, I seem to recall that you still haven't paid me that thirty caegars left on your tab.”

“Yeah? I recall that you aren't worth thirty caegars. I recall you barely paying attention.”

“Oh, you recall that? Is that what you recall? That's weird, 'cuz I was paying attention, and I think if you don't give me my money, I might start recalling some things you said really loud so's everyone in here can hear.”

Vriska stiffened. “Maybe I'll cleave your thinkpan in half. Maybe that'll improve your memory,” she hissed.

“Maybe the crushers'll stomp you flat at the first hint of you drawing steel, Serket. They seem bored enough, I'm sure they'll take notice.”

“Blackmailing your customers ain't gonna improve your business, Ostina.”

“As if it could get much worse right now. At least I'll be thirty caegars richer.”

“Go fuck yourself.”

“If you insist.”

Ostina cupped her hands to her mouth. “Hey! Everyone! Did you know that Captain Serket is afraid of —“

A fistful of assorted coins clattered on the surface of the table.

“There! God's fangs will you please fuck off?” Vriska said, going deep cerulean in the face.

Ostina scooped up the coins, counted them quickly, and slipped them into her pocket. “Pleasure doing business with you, Captain. What about you, Seer? You need a shoulder to cry on? I promise I can be _real_ understanding. An hour of commiseration for ten caegars. For you, I might even hold hands.”

“I'm good, thank you,” the Seer said. “But I applaud your uncommon entrepreneurial spirit.”

“We all got needs, Seer, even hornless freaks. I can't afford to be picky. No offense.”

“None taken.”

Ostina excused herself, began circulating through the room to ply her trade as a sympathetic ear for a reasonable rate.

“Well,” the Seer said, “that was probably mortifying.”

“Ya think?” Vriska snapped. “Hey, question for you, oh wise spiritual guide: why the fuck are you still here? Most people would take that as a cue to leave. Oh, ha ha, stupid me, you wanted to see what a terrible disaster I am! Are you happy? Are you content with watching me get rolled? Do I need to take you up on your offer of cutting my own head off to get some fucking peace?!”

“No, I don't believe autodecapitation will be necessary. And fortunately for you I don't give a solitary damn about your idiotic romantic problems. Instead, I was wondering if you would care for a reading. Free of charge; this would be partially for my own amusement.”

“A reading? What, like palms and shit? That's what you do, isn't it? Fine! If it'll get you to go away, why not?”

Vriska shot her hand out towards the Seer, palm turned up and fingers splayed.

“There! Go nuts!”

The Seer took her hand and studied it in deep contemplation.

“I see,” she said.

“Fascinating, this curve here...” she added.

“Oh dear, it's very short isn't it?” she continued.

“You gonna share your findings at any point?” Vriska said.

“Just one moment,” the Seer replied.

Several minutes more passed.

“I've reached a conclusion,” the Seer said.

“Well fucking spit it out!”

“This is definitely a hand.”

Vriska pulled her arm back, fingers balled into a fist.

“Before you lash out, I'd like to remind you that you are the one that insisted I knew anything about palm reading,” the Seer said.

The table rattled as Vriska's fist impacted it. “Respectfully, Miss Seer Pain-in-the-Ass, if you're going to do your God damned reading–”

“I just did.”

Vriska's mouth hung open, then shut, a tirade left forever unspewed. “What, just like that?”

“Little theatricality is necessary, beyond what my clients expect as becoming of fortune telling. Your patience is limited, so I'm cutting to the chase. Would you like to hear it?”

“Wh—? Yes!”

“Very well.”

The Seer leaned back in her chair.

“You are a woman in flight, and will continue to be in flight. There is no safety to be found for you as you are. Moving forever forward, you die slowly on your feet.”

Vriska had no reply to this, having gone oddly quiet.

“I see one who comes for you, a hunter by choice but a beggar by circumstance.. If you are to end your flight eternal, you must be prepared to serve. You must be a light for those lost in the dark, to remind them that they know the way. You must aid them by stealing away fortune from the grip of despair. Do this, and you may yet find what you are looking for.”

The silence between the two women that followed lasted for an uncomfortably long time.

“What is it that I'm looking for?” Vriska said, eventually.

“Beats me,” the Seer replied. “I'm not qualified to untangle that particular rat's nest.”

“And what if I decide that your prophecy can take a flying leap?”

“Well, Captain Serket, in that eventuality, I suggest you pick up your pace, because whatever it is you have chasing you is gaining. I don't care to speculate what will happen when it catches you.”

The color drained from Vriska's face.

“I believe,” the Seer said, “this concludes our session. I hope you will keep me in mind for all your future adumbration needs.”

“Yeah... sure,” Vriska replied, in a far-away voice.

“Also I believe your mediculler will be needing about a week's more time in port to conclude her business.”

“I'm not in any hurry.”

“She'll be pleased to hear it.”

The Seer rose and departed, leaving behind a stricken Serket.

It wasn't until she was certain the Seer was long since gone that Vriska decamped from the table to the bar, where she slammed a golden aureglian on the counter.

“Pour until I tell you to stop,” she instructed the bartender.

 

* * *

 

**Perigees in the future...**

 

Vriska stood at the aft railing of the quarterdeck, watching the snow fall, flitting in and out of the _Incarnadine's_ lamplight. Strange weather out here, beyond the Horn – snow over the ocean was uncommon even in the nothernmost latitudes of the Empire. Some confluence of precipitation patterns unique to the Disputed Territories made it possible. The weather was provoking rumblings of discontent among the crew at the edges of her telepathic senses, a few smoldering embers disturbing the otherwise uniform white noise she had grown accustomed to as part and parcel of being in close quarters with so many minds. It would need dealing with sooner or later. She'd been careful, though, and outright mutiny was a distant concern.

And if she shifted her mental focus every so slightly, she could perceive the burning thermite flare that was the mind belonging to Terezi Pyrope. 

She'd been good; she hadn't pried even for a moment since their meeting in Gerhae, but God was it ever tempting. It would be a very, very tough nut to crack, with no gaps in its defenses or places to get a hand-hold, but even a glimpse at the inner workings...

She gave herself a little shake, biting the inside of her cheek. Better not to dwell on the compulsion. 

At first, having Pyrope around had been profoundly obnoxious. No matter where Vriska went on the ship, she still felt her presence, like having someone forever looking over her shoulder. Once she'd gotten used to it, though, she start finding it soothing. Despite the company of so many trolls packed tightly into the confines of the ship, being captain meant distancing oneself, creating a pocket of isolation in the middle of a throng. There needed to be the recognition that, at the end of the night, you were in command. Any fractures in that conceit, any signs of weakness, could mean swift death by opportunistic usurpers. Having some sense of personal closeness, even if it was just psychic backwash from a particularly forceful cognizance, had made Vriska realize just how isolated she was.

That night in the Iron Horn, when the screw had run Terezi through and Vriska had felt her slipping away by degrees, her mind going cold and dim, it had felt as though the only candle in the whole world had been snuffed out, leaving Vriska alone in the dark. 

“Can I have a word with you, Captain?”

Vriska turned to find the cowled form of Militant Vantas waiting for her. She decided to distract herself by pissing him off, snapping her heel together and ripping off a crisp salute.

“Aye, Militant?” she said.

“Don't fucking call me that.”

“It's your agnomen, Militant, not all of us are fortunate enough to have one at such a young age.”

“Oh my God,” Vantas moaned, clutching his head, “I've been cursed to go amongst the frothing dipshits for my entire life. The slapasses will be my flock, and the giggling slackjaws will follow in their hundreds. I am in hell.”

“Is something amiss, Militant?”

“First and foremost, I know that you don't talk like that. So please, please, for a change, don't be an asshole.”

“Fine, what do you want Vantas? I'm a busy woman, I don't have time for–”

“How do you think she's doing? Recovering, I mean.”

Vriska hesitated, the scorn draining out of her. “You know as much as I do. She refuses to stop hobbling around the ship, trying to force herself to get better. I admire her resolve, to be honest with you.”

“I know, it's driving me up the God damned wall. She's going to fall down and knock all her fucking internal organs into paste if she's not careful.”

Vriska shrugged. “Weird thing is, it's almost like shes winning the fight with herself.”

“Yeah. She's... well, she's _something_ alright.”

Karkat pulled his hood back and ran his fingers through his hair. He looked worn out, but that was pretty much how he always looked. “Thanks for... y'know, thanks for helping take care of her. Maybe you aren't totally irredeemable barkbeast shit.”

“Wow, Vantas, that might be the nicest thing you've ever said to me. I'm touched. While we're at it, I guess you aren't a totally worthless, hair-trigger rage-grenade yourself.”

“Thanks.”

“Don't mention it.”

“I won't. By the way, did you know the crew is running a book on what quadrant you're in with her?”

Vriska laughed. “Seriously? What's the money saying?”

“It's skewing disturbingly towards black. Which, if I could just editorialize real quick here, knowing full well it's not my business, could you maybe _please_ see it in your rotten, withered bloodpusher to not–”

She waved him off. “Don't worry your nasty little head about it, Vantas. Even if I was inclined towards romantic feelings for her, those guys would still stand to lose their shirts.”

“Oh here we go, the boiler plate denials. How fucking predictable. Dear me, no, I'm not interested at all! I just spend as much of my time around her as possible and watch her from afar like the most stereotypically moonstruck moron on the planet.”

“I don't _stare at her_ , Vantas.”

“No, you do. It's getting to the point where I think that maybe the only people in the world who haven't gotten the hint by now are you two. It's kind of hilarious, actually. But hey, again, none of my business, even as bad an idea as I think it is. I hope you just wise the fuck up in a hurry, because sooner or later this is going to become agonizing.”

Vriska's eyebrow twitched. “You put a bet in, didn't you?”

“Yeah, five caegars on black.”

“I thought you were trying to talk me out of black.”

“I was hoping that by pretending to want it to happen, the universe would show its usual contempt for me and make that outcome less likely.”

“Not that it's any of your business.”

“Not in the least. Just, whatever happens... take care of her, okay?”

“I'm doing my best. She's my associate by solemn compact, and I keep up my end of bargains.”

Karkat rolled his eyes. “Sure, solemn compact. _Associate._ So that's what they're calling it these nights.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let's talk currency for a moment.
> 
> The basic unit of exchange for the realm of Her Imperious Condescension is the caegar. In terms of exchange, one caegar is equivalent to a decent meal, or room and board at a cut-rate tavernblock.
> 
> A sterling tragan is nominally worth seventy-four caegars, however exchange rates vary wildly across the Empire due to debasement, corruption, and a general lack of interest on the part of the Condesce in maintaining a standard economic basis for the specie that bears her likeness. Generally speaking, a tragan will buy a riding-hoofbeast of passable quality, transit by carriage from the capital to the outskirts of the Empire, or a good sword. 
> 
> A golden aureglian is the highest form of currency, and the least commonly encountered. Most trolls will never see one in their lives, and those that do will rarely spend less than a fistful of them at a time. One hundred and twelve tragans is roughly equivalent to one aureglian, bearing in mind the aforementioned provisions. An aureglian will outright buy a tavernblock, count for an investor's share in a trade mission to the Shahdom, or pay for a considerable portion of refitting a ship.


	13. Blaspheme

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And the man that will do presumptuously, and will not hearken unto the priest that standeth to minister there before the LORD thy God, or unto the judge, even that man shall die: and thou shalt put away the evil from Israel.  
> Deuteronomy 17:12

Water dripped in the dark beyond the tight circle of light thrown by Megido’s lantern, ran down the flanks of the timber balks that braced the stone ceiling, pooled underfoot for the unwary to stumble into. It was cold down here in the bowels of the earth, humid, stinking of antiquity. There were strange things set into the walls: bas-reliefs depicting rituals foreign to Terezi’s ken, empty niches containing a few scattered bones, and complex decorative engravings that bore hollows where once had been set gemstones.

“So the long and the short of it,” Megido said, chipper despite the oppressive surroundings, “is that the Iron Horn has been inhabited for much longer than most people think. I’m talking dating back to the conquests of Iskander at least.”

“And how old is that?” Vriska said, ducking under a timber.

Megido gave the seagrift a bemused look over her shoulder. “Y’know, Iskander? Trollexander the Great? He was a pretty big deal, maybe you’ve heard of him?”

“Oh, yeah, that guy. I think I remember Ampora running his yap about him from time to time.”

“I don't blame you for your ignorance. As a people, our record keeping is shockingly bad. Either we just don't bother, or we do and it all goes up in smoke once the next big war comes along. You have to really _want_ to learn about history. Anyway, it’s at least that old, and when you have a place that's been inhabited for that long you get some deep archaeological strata.”

“So are these chambers from Iskander's time?” Terezi said.

Megido giggled, her excitement palpable. “Nah. This stuff is from the late Trollatin period. We aren’t even close to the bottom.”

Up ahead, Megido’s lantern revealed a shallow pit, its perimeter ringed by a flight of plank stairs, crudely embedded in the wall.

“Watch your step on these,” she said. “I did my best to make it navigable, but this is more a hobby than anything so I can’t promise it’s entirely safe.”

“You dug all this yourself?” Terezi said.

“Not alone — turns out there’s a practical application for my excavations, so I was able to get the rest of the Signless Brethren to help.”

They reached the bottom of the pit, which, to Terezi’s surprise, was paved with finely-cut stone. More tunnels presented themselves, one of which Megido led them down. Here there were still more of the bone filled niches in the walls.

“What is this place?” Terezi said.

“To the best of my ability to tell,” Megido replied, “it’s a catacomb. Between the nights of Trollexander and unification under the Trollatins, the Horn was part of a culture that practiced ceremonial burial instead of exposure.”

“That’s messed up,” Vriska said.

“I think it’s neat. And you know what’s really wild?”

Megido stopped, turned to them, and pointed upwards.

“We’re underneath the strait right now.”

“You’re telling me that someone, sometime in the past, dug these chambers underneath the _ocean?_ ” Terezi said.

“That’s what’s wild about it! I don’t think there was a strait back when these catacombs were dug. Some of the reliefs down here show a metropolitan center without a body of water running through the middle, and the strait _is_ unusually shallow, which suggests– ”

“That the strait is artificial, more of a canal,” Terezi said. “Would an ancient society have the kind of resources necessary to pull that off?”

Aradia shrugged. “I doubt it's really that ancient; it was probably dug not too long after the collapse of the Trollatins by a regional successor kingdom. They wouldn't have the same level of expertise, but throw enough slaves at a problem and sooner or later you'll get the job done. I can't imagine the locals were any more enlightened back then than they are now. ”

“And I guess if you're King Tinpot, Ruler of From Here to That Hill Over There, having a big canal to show off makes your crappy little fiefdom more impressive,” Vriska said.

“Prestige would play a role, yes,” Aradia said, “but more importantly it made the Horn into a hub of trade. After that? Sweeps passed and everyone got too busy killing each other during the feudal era to be bothered remembering where the strait came from. Still, it means there's unmonitored passage into the upper city from the lower city slums that doesn't require a boat. And on that note, let’s talk about what I need you guys to do in exchange for me getting you over there.”

“Oh, here we go,” Vriska moaned. “Everybody always wants something. Fine! Whatever! Who do you want killed?”

“Quite the opposite, Captain. I need your help saving lives. There were a few of our number on the north side of the strait when the clergy executed their putsch. It is very important that we recover them.”

“I hate to break it to you, Megido,” Terezi said, “but they’re probably already dead. The clowns are not known for their hospitality.”

“Believe me, Miss Pyrope, if they were dead, I would know.”

“And how, exactly, do you–” Vriska began.

“Because I can hear the voices of the dead,” Megido interrupted. “And they are not among them.”

Vriska leaned in close to Terezi.

“Told you she’s fucking nuts,” she hissed.

Terezi ignored her. “Do you have a plan for extracting these captives?”

“Yep. It was looking a little dicey before you showed up, but I think with your help we can make it work. The Signless Brethren still have a few agents active in the upper city, and I've got resources of my own to draw on, so we aren't entirely out in the weeds here.”

“Resources?” Vriska said. “What, do your ghosts give you pointers?”

“Among other things. Mostly they drown out the chucklevoodoos for me, but I they can offer forms of assistance as well.

“They drown...”

“Wailing, screaming, carrying on, all the things you'd expect from the souls of the violently slain. Incidentally, Captain, they're telling me some very interesting things about you right now.”

Vriska took a slow, uneasy step back and looked over her shoulder. “They're here?”

“Word gets around. But don't worry; they can't hurt you unless I give them a conduit to do so.”

“I will thank you, Miss Megido,” Terezi said, “to stop spooking my associate.”

Megido laughed. “I have that effect on people. Forgive me, Captain Serket.”

Vriska didn't reply, instead staring over her shoulder, down the tunnel behind them, as if expecting a horde of vengeful specters to come howling out of the darkness.

“Back to these people you need rescued,” Terezi said, “do you have any idea where they are located?”

“I can't say for certain, but based on the reconnaissance I've been able to do, it looks like they're preparing for the celebration of the feast of some saint or another in what's left of the circuit courtblock,” Megido replied. “And if there's one thing I know for sure, it's that the clowns don't throw a party without spilling a little lower blood.”

Terezi nodded. “That would explain why they're not dead yet. If that is in fact the case, the prison underneath the courtblock seems a likely place for them to be held. And if we help you recover these prisoners, you will help us gain access to the controls to lower the chain across the strait?”

“That I will,” Megido said.

“Do you have any objections, Serket?”

Vriska muttered something noncommittal, still staring into the darkness behind them.

“Very well,” Terezi said, rapping her cane against the stones, “lead on, Megido.”

* * *

 

 

**Nights in the future...**

There wasn’t much to the Nezbor Island settlement: a few rough dirt roads lined with timber hives, clinging grimly to the edge of a forest on a rock in the middle of the frigid northern latitudes. Despite its relative insignificance, it represented one of the largest population centers in the disputed territories, a fact which spoke more to the rugged nature of life on the frontier than anything. There was precious little to recommend the lifestyle, save the absence of higher authority. That alone was enough for some people, if the prominently displayed Signless Shackles on one building were anything to go by.

There had been some bad noise at the start of the visit. The island had no docks suitable for the _Incarnadine_ , so a longboat had been put out, carrying Terezi, Vriska, and a few of the crew. They were met at the waterfront by a mob of trolls, armed with antique matchlocks and corroded swords, who demanded to know what business their visitors had on Nezbor in a kind of pidgin-Principalities dialect. Terezi had replied to the best of her abilities, stumbling over the harsh consonant clusters and making a total hash of the conjugations. It wasn’t until she dropped the name of her contact in the village that the welcome scuttlewagon started to relax.

 _Zhymet_. The name passed among them, and one troll stepped forward. He was garbed in a coat with ruffs of fur at the throat and wrists, and appeared to be not much older than Terezi, though his world-weary expression suggested he had seen enough in his time to add dozens of sweeps to his count.

“Advocata Pyrope, I presume” he said in unaccented Imperial, bowing low. “Please forgive these people; they are unused to peaceful visitors.”

“It’s understandable,” Terezi replied. “I imagine the only outsiders one sees here are seagrifts.”

“As if these idiots have anything worth stealing,” Vriska muttered.

Terezi elbowed her in the ribs.

With Zhymet vouching for them, their longboat was quickly tied up and they were allowed to disembark. Though there was no longer an immediate threat of violence, their reception remained frosty at best. The crowd slowly dissolved away amid suspicious looks and quiet muttering. Eventually, they were left with only Zhymet and a young boy, who watched them as though they were some manner of legendary beasts.

“Are you really Imperials?” he said, speaking in the Principalities dialect.

Terezi cocked her head at him, bemused.

“Last I checked,” she replied, in kind.

“You sound dumb.”

“Apologies, but your tongue is not so easy for me.”

He thought about this for a moment, reached some internal conclusion, and nodded. “Maybe. But, tell me, is it true that Imperials sleep with their livestock and never bathe?”

Zhymet drew a breath through his teeth and clouted the boy upside the head.

“Mind yourself, you little bastard!” he said.

The boy made an aggrieved noise and bolted.

Zhymet turned to Terezi. “Again, I must beg your forgiveness.”

Terezi laughed. “Mister Zhymet, I cannot recall the last time I had a bath that didn’t involve seawater, so I feel the question is perfectly justified.”

“The boy should know his place. Please come with me.”

Leaving the crew behind to watch the longboat, Terezi and Vriska set out following Zhymet along a dirt path that led out of the town of Nezbor and into the woods that covered the rest of the island. Before long, the ground began to rise beneath them as they ascended into the highlands that made up the interior.

“You do not live with the rest of the locals, Mister Zhymet?” Terezi said after they had been walking for a while.

“I cherish my privacy,” he said. “And besides, they tolerate my presence only grudgingly.”

“Would you be willing to speculate on what the rulers of your empire have in mind for the Militant? It seems odd that they would be willing to accept such a dangerous subversive like him without precondition.”

Zhymet scoffed. “I cannot speak to the exact motivation, but I imagine it is the result of some power struggle in the Council of Princes.”

Their group rounded a switchback and ascended further into the trees.

“You see,” Zhymet continued, “we do not have a truly unified crown as you Imperials do. The Tsaritsa has not been seen in decades, remaining in seclusion in her palace. Many think her dead, but with no heiress yet hatched, and with our church remaining cloistered and offering no guidance of their own, we maintain the facade that she still rules us. The Council of Princes was intended to be her cabinet, but in her absence it falls to squabbling between the petty bluebloods and the few seadwellers that our waters can support. There is talk among a faction of the blues of abolishing serfdom and leading an army of emancipated lowbloods against the rest, and it seems likely that you contacted an agent of our intelligence services that was in league with that conspiracy. Perhaps they believe possessing the Militant will garner them loyalty from the masses. Foolishness, if you ask me”

“So you do not approve of this mission?” Terezi said.

“I have no opinion on the matter save that I do not think it will work. But my opinion matters little: I am an agent of the Tsaritsa, long may she reign.” The last few words carried a distinct tone of resigned cynicism.

Among the trees ahead of them squatted a large longhive built from whole logs, ringed by a low palisade within which the ground had been cleared of underbrush.

“My dacha,” Zhymet said. “It is not much, but you are welcome to it.”

The interior of Zhymet's hive was cluttered and, to Terezi's unspeakable delight, warm. A fire, burning in the massive hearth, melted away what felt like a lifetime of accumulated frost on her joints. Heavy pelts, cholerbear and dire elk, carpeted the floor and hung from the walls, providing insulation against the wind that seeped in through cracks in the timbers. Bookshelves ringed the main room, packed to bursting. A long table in front of the fireplace was piled high with still more books and papers, as well as dirty plates and cups. A number of doors led off from the main room, leading to respiteblocks and other such chambers.

“Nice digs,” Vriska said. “Looks like you keep busy.”

“It serves its purpose. It was originally built as a forward command post for the Principalities during the war, officers quarters and such. As for the mess, I must beg your pardon. This is a boring place and I receive few guests, so I must forestall going mad as best I can.”

He took a sheet of paper and a pen from the table and handed it to Terezi

“I believe you were provided with a code phrase for this situation, were you not? If you would please write it on here for me, I will send it off immediately.”

In a jagged hand, Terezi wrote:

S1R,

HOW F4R3S YOUR LUSUS TH1S S34SON?

HOP3FULLY NO WORS3 THAN L4ST W3 SPOK3.

S1NC3R3LY,

YOUR S3RV4NT

Zhymet took the paper, glanced at it, and nodded. “Would you care to see our message carriers?”

“Is that not a state secret?” Terezi said.

“It is, but who would you tell about it? You are wanted criminals. I suppose you could attempt to steal one, if you desired to add the oprichnikarcerators to your list of pursuers.”

“A fair point.”

They exited the longhive and headed across the yard to a shed set against the palisade. Inside was not the musty guano-reek of a carrier-featherbeast rookeryblock, but instead a metallic scent overlaid with hints of mechanical grease.

“Clockwork featherbeasts?” Vriska said, stooping over to get a good look at one of the constructs that awaited on the shelves that lined the room. “Ain't that pretty fancy for a little spy listening post in the middle of nowhere?”

“It saves the Infiltraitorous Bureau tremendous amounts of money on feed and breeding stock,” Zhymet replied, enthusiasm entering his deadpan. “A countrytroll of yours makes them for us, amusingly enough. He came to us seeking asylum from reprisal from your lunatic church over some petty slight. A remarkable craftstroll, though I am led to believe he is a bit... sweaty.”

They really were intricate little beasts, about twice the size of their flesh-and-blood counterparts, with their feathers made from thin wafers of some unknown material, the clicking of complex internal mechanisms taking the place of breathing, and the blank glass of their eyes striking a tiny spark of familiarity in Terezi.

“Impressive,” Terezi said. “How do they know their destination?”

“That,” Zhymet replied, “is something I can't tell you, if only because I do not understand the science behind it.”

Zhymet folded the note down as small as the paper allowed, then placed it into a capsule which slotted neatly into a port in one of the automatons' flanks. He produced a key from his pocket and used it to give the featherbeast's internal workings a few solid cranks. The creature shuddered to life, the ticking sound from within rising in speed and volume. It turned its head from side to side as Zhymet opened a hatch in the wall, then took to wing in a jerky imitation of flight and was gone.

“Well, there you have it,” Zhymet said. “It will take several nights to complete a round trip, during which time I must request that you stay on Nezbor. The situation is, ah, shall we say _in flux_ and should it begin to degenerate rapidly I would prefer to have the two of you close at hand.”

“How do you mean 'degenerate,' Mister Zhymet?” Terezi said, eyebrow raised.

He shifted uncomfortably. “There has been an unusual spike in ship traffic in the area – vessels flying no flag, but with the look of military craft. I fear we may be compromised. Depending on what word arrives from my associates in the field, if any arrives at all, we may need to act quickly. There is no tavernblock in Nezbor, however I can offer you respiteblocks in my dacha. The amenities are more than sufficient, if unexciting.”

“Not gonna lie, I wouldn't mind spending a couple nights out of the wind,” Vriska said. “I'll need to send word to the _Incarnadine,_ let 'em know not to worry.”

Zhymet inclined his head. “That can be arranged.”

* * *

 

**Nights in the past...**

Complications arose immediately upon their attempts to exit the tunnels beneath the upper city. Their first exit of choice, a sewer grating around the corner from the circuit courtblock, was denied to them by a plodding throng of clergy marching through the street, their voices raised in one of their blood-curdling chants. The same held true no matter where Megido led them. The upper city _crawled_ ; Terezi had never seen so many clowns in one place, even in the capital city. Every acolyte and zealot from the entire east of the Empire seemed to have been drawn to the Iron Horn, leaving the three of them to scurry around beneath the streets like vermin.

Eventually, Megido managed to lead them to an exit that opened into the basement of an empty building, where exactly she couldn't say.

“I'm pretty sure we're at the edge of the upper city dockyards,” she said, stepping out of the floor hatch. She lifted her lantern high, illuminating a few bits of wooden debris, cobwebs, and not much else.

“And how far is that from where we need to be?” Vriska said, dusting herself off.

Megido gave her a tight lipped smile. “Pretty far.”

“So now we have to hoof it overland through a city full of pioused-up clowns. You really did a terrific job planning this operation, Megido.”

“I'm sorry, next time I'll arrange a way to burn the entire city to the ground. Would that be more your speed, Captain?”

“Okay, first of all that was completely not our fault, and second...”

Megido wasn't listening to Vriska's protests, though. Instead she crept up the flight of rickety stairs that led into the first floor of the building and delicately pushed it open.

“No one's around,” she said. “Follow me, and be quiet.”

They emerged onto a street that made the lower city appear bustling by comparison. Not even the wind dared stir here, allowing the rain to fall straight down in an uninterrupted sheet, pooling in the street up to Terezi's ankles in places. There were no lights to illuminate the gloom, leaving them in a darkness that muddied even Terezi's senses.

They moved as quickly as they could through the downpour, stopping to check through every corner, taking full advantage of the darkness that had descended across the city. None of them spoke; they barely risked breathing. The skittering of Vriska's telepathy rose to a high whine in Terezi's head as the seagrift pushed her mind outward, feeling for ambushes lying in wait. Aradia, for her part, seemed miles away, listening to something beyond hearing, seeing something beyond sight.

Suddenly Terezi felt very alone, exposed and stumbling blind through a city of the dead.

Either hours or mere minutes had passed when they found the first of the bodies impaled on wooden spikes at a street intersection.

“God's fangs,” Megido muttered, flinching.

“What's the matter, rustblood? Weak stomach?” Vriska said.

“You're lucky you can't hear them.”

Something pulled Terezi onward, drawing her towards the bodies. Closer now, she could tell that they were clad in the uniforms of the courtblock, their faces frozen in expressions of anguish. The part of her that was still a creature of the Cruelest Bar tutted quietly at the barbaric and inefficient method of execution; they must've carried on for quite some time as they died. The rest of her felt the disquieting sense of having dodged a bullet, that it could just as easily have been her, given a slight change in circumstances.

“Were they friends of yours?” Megido said.

“What makes you ask?”

“One of them seems to know your name.”

Terezi froze.

“He doesn't seem very pleased with you.”

“We should keep moving,” Terezi said.

Their progress slowed as they drew closer to the center of the city where the courtblock stood; they were no longer the only ones out on the streets. At first they encountered only a scattered few stragglers from the main procession of clergy: trolls rendered delirious from over-indulgence in their sacraments, reeling through the rain alone or in small groups that clung to each other to keep from falling over. They were easily avoided for the most part, but less so were the bands of wrecktors, the lay clergy foot soliders of the Eccsleaziarchy, that combed the streets rounding them up to ensure that they did not commit the unimaginable blasphemy of missing out on the night's ceremony. Like most of the clergy, the wrecktors cut imposing figures, clad in motley robes that covered them head to toe, their faces hidden behind masks that made them appear to permanently victim to divinely-inspired merriment.

They proceeded for a while like this, slipping between shadows, avoiding large groups of clowns whenever possible, quietly cutting a throat or two when it proved necessary, and as they plunged ever deeper into the corpse-city the chucklevoodoos grew ever stronger. It was only to be expected with the large concentration of clergy in the area, starting as a knot in the stomach, developing into a sensation of inchoate dread that crawled up the spine on tiny pinprick hooks, wrapping itself around the heart, worming its way into the back of the mind, lurking, watching, always watching. The air here, in the outer ring of the city center, was oppressive with its weight. Despite the chill in the air, Terezi found herself sweating profusely. The sensation of Vriska's probing took on a frayed, harried edge under the stress and she clenched the grip of her sword with white knuckles.

Meanwhile, over the roofs of the city, the chanting from the gathered masses in the distance grew louder with every step.

Still, for all the disaster that loomed over them, there came no cries of alarm, no enraged shouts from roused wrecktors. The clowns remained blissfully unaware of the infiltrators among them, even as their numbers grew too thick on the ground to allow use of the streets and the three were forced to take to the rooftops to continue. Below them, the crowds grew to a throng, lost in rapturous celebration of their messiahs. Whoops and cries of religious ecstasy split the air, interspersed with the shattering of glass as phials of sacred elixir were smashed on whatever surfaces proved convenient.

“So,” Vriska said as she leaned over the edge of a roof to inspect the riot, “purely out of curiosity, did you have any plan for how we were going to get your guys _out_ of here?”

“I was hoping the festivities wouldn't be so... involved yet,” Megido replied, “but I do have an idea. It's unpleasant, but it'll get the job done.”

“How unpleasant are we talking?”

“You'll see.”

Every roof they crossed brought them closer to the courtblock, and closer to the center of the celebration below. Even now, Terezi could make out shattered and gutted edifice lit by bonfires in the street, looking for all the world like the exposed ribs of carcass picked over by carrion beasts. It stirred strange emotions, conflicting feelings of loss and satisfaction. One final gap to clear and they'd be right up against it, able to slip in through any number of windows into an officeblock, and from there down into the depths of the prison beneath. The question of how they would remove the captives afterwards still stood, but progress was at least being made.

“Stop here,” Megido said. “We need to wait for the others.”

“What others?” Terezi said.

“The Brethren agents. Once we've linked up with them, we can carry out the plan. Just cool your heels a minute.”

Terezi was preparing to complain about delays until activity in the street caught her attention. Down at ground level, in the square in front of the courtblock, at the center of the riot stood a stage of sorts, hung with garish banners. A troll was ascending it, clad in vestments that Terezi recognized as those of an archfreakon, one of the Eccsleaziarchy's high ranks. Her hands were raised in a beatific gesture as she strode to the center of the platform, and flanking her on either side, dwarfing her, was the terrible enormity of a subjugglator. The crowd sent up a deafening roar at her appearance; a few within it hurled phials at her in a display of exuberance, one catching her in the forehead and spattering her with its contents. If this disturbed the archfreakon she made no sign of it, instead holding her hands up higher to call for quiet.

“STILL YOUR JABBER!” bellowed one of the subjugglators, its voice overpowering the rest of the trolls in the square combined. “FIX YOUR SEE-HOLES ALL UP ON HERE AND RECIEVE SOME WISDOM, YOU RABBLE!”

The edict spread outward through the crowd, taking quite some time to reach the outer fringes. When at last all eyes were on the archfreakon, she spoke. “My invertibrothers, my most twisted sisters, blessings of the harshwhimsies be with you all,” she said.

“And also with you!” came the chorused reply from numberless throats.

“We have gathered this night to celebrate the Feast of Saint Direjape, who in times long past did spread the mirth to the mirthless, and, yea, did deliver four and twenty hundreds of the wacknathema to judgment. But before we begin, I bear glad tidings from the capital – that hive of worldly unbelief, that sanctum to lie-weavers, that temple for the followers of words that neglecteth the Good Word, the Upper Courtblock, warren of the Cruelest Bar and all her minions, has been toppled by the hands of the Grand Highblood himself! Not one stone has been left atop another, and the heathens are scattered, as chaff to the winds!”

A cheer went up from the crowd, deafening, hysterical in victory, and Terezi was seized by a sudden vertigo. Impossible, it had to be. The Cruelest Bar, with all its institutional weight, its _inertia_ , a lodestone upon the fabric of the Empire, gone. Destroyed. Scythed off the surface of the planet by a pack of... _scumbags_ like those crammed into the square below. It couldn't be. It simply could not _fucking be._

She should have been happy. She should have taken a measure of satisfaction from the knowledge that the Bar had finally gotten what was coming to it. The thought of all those bastards and their twisted webs of _utter bullshit_ finally being toppled, finally paying for what they'd tried to do to her...

Instead she felt nothing but profound loss the likes of which she hadn't experienced since the death of her lusus.

Vriska was at her side, catching her as she took a step away from the edge and nearly stumbled over her own feet.

“What's wrong?”

“I tripped,” Terezi said. She tamped down her emotions as best she could. There was no time for such irrationality; she had a job to do.

“Oh, like hell.”

Terezi fixed her with a blind glare.

“I tripped,” she repeated. “I'm fine.”

“You're lying to a telepath is what you are.”

“I told you to stay out of my head.”

“I'm not _in_ you head. I'm over here minding my own business and you're flashing  _not doin' so hot!_ at me like a semaphore lantern."

“It's nothing! Just a momentary distraction.”

“Is she okay?” Megido said, approaching them.

“She's fine. She tripped.” Vriska said.

“Good, we're almost ready to begin.”

Several cloaked figures clambered onto the roof behind Megido – more of her Signless Brethren, of the same stoic mold that Terezi was familiar with when it came to radicals. They drew up beside Megido, as though preparing for a brawl with the bluebloods.

“So this is them, aye?” one of them said. “Couple'a toffs, don't see what all the fuss is about.”

“I hear they burned Vennah,” said another. “Put it to the torch and made their escape under cover of the smoke.”

“Killed a lot of slitnecks, they have,” offered a third. “Don't sound too bad for blues.”

“Pfft, anyone can kill a slit,” the fourth sneered.

“Oh, yes? How many have you done? Are we in the company of a wader-slayer without knowing it?”

“Just 'cuz a toff flays a slit or two don't suddenly make them a friend of the lowfolk.”

“Maybe, but it's damn more than you can say for most of 'em.”

“Irrespective,” Terezi cut in, “of our relative ability to kill seadwellers, would someone like to fill us in on what our next step is?”

Aradia clasped her hands in front of her.

“As I said, it's going to be unpleasant. I might have even been underselling it.”

“I'm not afraid of a few clowns, Megido,” Vriska said. “Smash and grab, same as any I've ever done.”

“That's just it; we won't be doing any smashing or grabbing. We're going to be a distraction. The prisoners aren't going to be in any state to leave the way we came in, so they need to be extracted through a catacombs entrance that's closer to the courtblock. Problem being that there's a big church function between us and those entrances. We need to break up that crowd and lead them away so the others can get the prisoners out.”

“You really are out of your mind if you think I'm going to dangle my ass out there in front of a bunch of clowns,” Vriska said, crossing her arms.

“So that's why you were willing to help us,” Terezi said. “We're higher-priority targets for the clergy than some clutch of lowblood heretics, just the thing to catch their eye for long enough for your comrades to get the job done. And if we get snagged? Well, we're just a couple of blueblood snobs, no one will miss us.”

“It's not like that! Look, I know you have the Militant, and I want him gotten to safety as much as anyone. If you two are going to do that, then I can't go throwing you to the church just so I can say I stuck it to a couple of bluebloods. And in any case you don't seem so bad for blues. Well, you at least don't, Miss Pyrope; Rhenon told me what you did for him, and anyone who would risk their life like you have is obviously a cut above the rest. As far as Captain Serket goes... well, I'm willing to be proven wrong.”

Vriska rolled her eyes. “Real generous of you.”

“You said 'we' need to distract the clowns,” Terezi said. “Does that mean you'll be joining us?”

“Yeah, I wouldn't have you do anything I wasn't willing to do myself. Like I said, I've got some tricks up my sleeve, and as it happens the upper tower is a good place to whip them out.”

“Why is that?”

“Because it's a defensible position and its foundations are on top of a huge, mostly undisturbed ancient crypt. If we can make it there, we might just survive this.”

“'Might' ain't really filling me with confidence, Megido,” Vriska said.

“Would you rather I lied to you?”

Vriska had no answer for this.

“What will it be?” Aradia said. “You've come this far, don't tell me you're going to back out now.”

Terezi sighed. “I guess I'm in. Although if you end up getting me killed, I can tell you that my ghost will be giving you quite the earful. Vriska, what do you think?”

Vriska cursed under her breath. “I think I'm getting real, _reaaaaaaaal_ tired of always having to run away from shit. Fuck it, I'm in.”

Aradia clapped her hands together, her broad smile returning. “Great! I knew I could count on you two to be on board with stirring up some trouble.” She turned to the waiting Brethren. “Get in position, wait until the coast is clear before moving. I'll meet up with you back in the lower city when this is all over.”

“Watch yourself out there, Megido,” one of the Brethren said.

“Best of luck to ya, blueies. Don't let the clowns getcha,” said another.

They cleared the last jump before the courtblock and disappeared into it through a window.

“Alright then,” Megido said when she was satisfied that they were gone. “Ready?”

“As ready as I'll ever be,” Terezi said.

“Let's just get this over with,” Vriska added.

Aradia strode to the edge of the roof to look out over the horde beneath them. This whole time, the archfreakon had been engaged in delivering an extended sermon on some obscure article of the faith, punctuating her words with oratorical gestures. Apparently something she had just said resonated with the crowd, launching them into one of their terrible chants. It went on for long enough that the subjugglators had to silence them again.

“And so,” she said, once the crowd had quieted down, “with the teachings of Direjape ever in the forefront of our pans, let us go forth and...”

Megido extended her arm, fingers splayed.

The archfreakon's neck bent at an unnatural angle and broke with a snap that was audible from the roof. Her body lifted gently into the air, floating up to where the three trolls were hiding, hovering there long enough to make sure that every eye in the crowd was focused on them.

Megido jerked her arm downwards and the archfreakon's body plunged into the street, impacting with a wet splat.

“Mother fucking BLASPHEMY!” screamed one of the subjugglators. “Profaners of hallowed ground, mother fucking BELLY-SLITHERING WORMS!”

“Impious, whacknathema MOTHER FUCKS!” thundered the second.

“That's one way of getting their attention,” Terezi said.

“Yep,” Megido replied. “Time to run.”

They lit out back across the roofs, away from the courtblock, at top speed, a baying horde following at their backs.

* * *

 

 

**Meanwhile...**

In the waters of the strait a cutter slipped quietly away from the city, running dark with its lanterns extinguished.

Leaving the strait, it sped across the open water to a the fleet awaiting it. It maneuvered along the line of ships until it came to one in particular, a ship-of-the-line that announced itself as the _Puissant._ It drew alongside the larger ship and a bosun's whistle sang out, signaling for a rope ladder to be dropped to allow the cutter's commanding officer to come aboard.

Commodore Dumane and Lieutenant Letraq were waiting for her when she struggled up onto the deck of the _Puissant_. A third troll was with them, one she didn't recognize – a tealblood, in sorry shape.

“Report, Eserid,” Dumane said, taking a long draw on his pipe.

Eserid saluted. “Bluntly, Commodore, its a Goddamn nightmare. Couldn't get an accurate count of the clowns from the water, but there's a lot of the bastards. The courtblock's been gutted, and there's no sign that they left anyone alive up there. Still, lots of long avenues for musket fire and a good elevation for bombardment. Not much room to maneuver in the strait, unfortunately. I've got a full report written up.”

Dumane took the documents from her and gave them a quick once-over. “Thank you, Eserid, that will be all.”

As Eserid departed, Alecto stepped forward. “Give me command of the aquassailants, Commodore, and I —”

“Denied,” Dumane said without letting her finish. “I've heard of what happened at Vennah, and I've no interest in repeating that debacle.”

“Commodore, the Articles of War dictate that —”

“Damn the Articles and damn you. You are no superior of mine; you are here on my sufferance and I've suffered about as much as I'm prepared to from you. We do this my way.”

Alecto was, by now, vibrating with barely suppressed rage.

“And what,” she said, “would be 'your way?'”

“Why, introducing the Eccsleaziarchy to the magic of naval bombardment, of course,” he said with a smirk. “A few nights of sustained shelling never fails to put the fear of God into the enemy, I'd wager even the clowns won't have much fight left in them after that. Once I am satisfied that the place has been pacified, then we may see about your quarry.”

Alecto seized him by the collar, nearly pulling him from his feet. “They will escape! I can feel it! They will escape and I will have _failed_ , Commodore!”

Letraq was suddenly behind her, the point of his sword jabbing into her back.

“Unhand him at once, or I swear I will end you,” he hissed.

They stood frozen like this for a moment, a fine tableau for the rest of the crew to goggle at.

“Stand down, Lieutenant,” Dumane said.

“Sir, she...”

Their eyes met over Alecto's shoulder.

“Stand down,” Dumane repeated.

Letraq complied hesitantly.

“A boat, then,” Alecto said. “Let me infiltrate the city under cover of your bombardment.”

“Alone, Barristerror? You'll be killed.”

“Perhaps, but I must at least try.”

Dumane extricated himself from her grip and brushed himself off. “Far be it from me to stand between you and your deathwish. Your request is granted.”

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was originally going to be part of a much longer chapter, but it was getting to the point where I could justify splitting the whole thing in half for readability, and its 4/13, so what the hell.


	14. Revelation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Recommended listening:  
> [Zodiac, God is an Astronaut](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jZ4kFXlAqI)  
> [Eating Hooks, Moderat](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jZ4kFXlAqI)  
> [Army of Fear, Lorn](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-ZjhEJ6okI)

How long they'd been running, Terezi couldn't say. It felt like nights, sweeps, forever since Megido had assassinated the archfreakon in full sight of a gathered throng of the faithful. And now that throng was dogging them relentlessly. The one thing they had working in their favor was the sheer number of their pursuers made them clumsy. Frequently they were slowed or divided when a few of them would make a wrong turn and others behind them would follow, or a pack of them would run into another pack going the opposite direction and had to stop to sort things out.

They'd managed to ditch a large number of the clowns, but even with all the confusion the three of them had only a short lead when they finally passed through the unbarred gates of the Citadel, the old fortress that once watched over the upper shore of the mouth of the strait. It hadn't been used for its intended purpose within living memory; its walls had been built to resist stones hurled from trebuchets, not explosive shells. Instead, some engineer realized that one of its inner towers, far enough away from the sea-facing walls that a naval bombardment from the open ocean would have to pound through the entire complex to get at it, could be repurposed. At the top of this tower, ten stories up, waited the controls to lower the chain that sealed the strait. The height allowed the chain to clear the walls of the Citadel to hang a few feet above the waters of the strait when raised, running all the way across to the lower tower on the other side. And should some foe attempt a landing to seize the controls, as the Principalities had attempted during the last war, they swiftly learned that while the Citadel's fortifications could not hold up against cannons they were more than up to the task of repelling foot soldiers.

The three trolls hustled across the Citadel's empty courtyard to the tower. Normally there would have been a garrison of militia keeping watch, but they had long since fled. Reaching the doors, they threw them open to find the tower similarly deserted. Despite being exhausted from their long flight across the city, they hauled whatever furniture was close at hand over to barricade the door. Once the doors were secured, though the barrier would last only a short time against the massed strength of the clergy, they hurried up a spiral set of stairs into the upper levels of the tower, pausing to erect similar barricades wherever possible.

They arrived at the top of the tower, up a ladder and through a hatch, just as the sound of pounding at the ground level doors reached them. Here waited the chain controls, a complex mechanism featuring many levers and gears connected to a larger assembly that filled the rest of the room — gears and pulleys and counterweights and all manner of machinery sat idle. A spool of rusted chain links, thicker than Terezi's arm, waited to be released. From the spool, the chain ran through a groove cut into the floor, out through a port in the wall next to a door that led out onto a long, wide balcony that jutted out over the city, before dropping off into space. At the end of the balcony sat a semaphore lantern rig, meant for communicating with the lower tower.

“Alright! We're here!” Vriska gasped. “Whatever you're gonna do, Megido, make it fucking snappy!”

Megido didn't need to be told as much. Already she had entered a trance, with head lowered and arms outstretched as though reaching out for someone to take hold of.

“Just keep them busy,” she said, her voice gone flat and cold.

More crashing came from below as the clowns burst through the barricades one after the next. Heavy footsteps pounded up stairs.

“The first seven are mine,” Vriska said. “After that, it's open season.”

“Why seven?” Terezi said.

“Because I've got eight bullets and I'm saving the last for you, if it comes down to that. I'd prefer if you weren't alive for what happens if this goes badly.”

Terezi drew her sword. “Keep sweet talking me, Serket. I may swoon."

Creaking came from the ladder beneath the hatch.

“Thank me later.”

The hatch slammed open as a wrecktor threw themselves through it, nearly managing to get all the way into the room before Vriska's pistol blew the top of their head off.

“Yeah that's right!” she shouted, holstering the spent gun and pulling another from inside her coat. “Got plenty more where that came from! Maybe ask yourself if I'm out yet before you try again!”

Two more attempts followed in quick succession, both earning a bullet to the head for their initiative. After that, the clowns paused to consider their options.

“C'mon! I'm waiting!”

A few voices muttered beneath them but no further attempts at the ladder were made. The voices receded, their owners falling back.

“That can't have scared them off,” Vriska said.

“Doubtful,” Terezi replied.

“So what the hell are they doing?”

“Planning something? Or...”

Terezi turned slowly to face the balcony. “Or waiting for something.”

There came the sound of splintering stone from outside the tower. Something massive was climbing the exterior, ripping the aging masonry apart as it ascended.

“That had better not be what I think it is,” Vriska said.

“I'm afraid it is.”

The sound drew closer.

“Megido? Mind getting the lead out?”

“Don't... rush me! You wouldn't... like what happens... if I lose concentration!” Megido's skin had gone deathly pale, every joint in her body rigid. “Just... a little longer! Keep it away from me!”

Vriska hefted her saber in one hand and a pistol in the other. “Don't suppose we could just lock it out?” she said.

“It would rip the door off its hinges,” Terezi replied.

“Do we stand much of a chance fighting it?”

“We might be able to slow it down. Emphasis on _might_. How long do you need, Megido?”

“Not long! A few minutes... no more!”

“Guess this is it then,” Vriska said. “Remember, bullet eight is yours if you want it.”

“There is no one I'd rather have shoot me than you,” Terezi said.

This drew a smile from Vriska. “Wow, look at us, getting all morbid. C'mon Tez, how lucky you feeling right about now?”

“I'm feeling so unlucky that I'm willing to overlook you calling me 'Tez' if only so that I don't die complaining.”

They stepped out onto the balcony just as a hand large enough to palm a cannonball reached up to grip the railing that surrounded it. It gave the railing a firm tug, tearing it from the stone, and the awe-inspiring form of a subjugglator hove into view from below. A huge mane of tangled hair stood out straight from its head, every inch of its form was encrusted with dried blood in all the colors of the spectrum, blotting out the pattern of its tattered motley vestments. Heavy gauntlets of an unknown material encased its hands, and it carried a huge lacquered war club slung across its back.

More striking than any of this was the miasma of _fear_ that sleeted off the creature in thick coils. This was the chucklevoodoos in their most potent form, the reason for the subjugglators' infamy. Few trolls could hope to resist even short exposure.

Already Terezi began to feel the effects as the symptoms that had nagged at her since arriving in the upper city intensified a thousand-fold. Her world became an endless sea of frigid water, the feeling draining from her extremities as she watched the subjugglator advance inexorably down the balcony towards them. She knew in that instant that what was about to happen to her was just and proper. It was the natural way of things for the low to be crushed by the high, for the weak to perish by the hand of the strong.

Her death would be a mercy.

Vriska grabbed Terezi by the shoulder and gave her a shake, breaking the subjugglator's foul glamour for a moment. The seagrift's face was set in an expression of intense exertion, her teeth bared and her multi-pupiled eye twitching, her telepathy being pushed to the point of creating not so much the sound as the feeling of listening to nails being dragged down a chalkboard.

“Let me into your mind,” Vriska whispered.

“What? No!”

“I know it's weird but you have to trust me!”

“Even if I wanted you rummaging around in my head, I don't think we have the time for —”

“I won't rummage! I can't really explain what I'm going to do, but when you feel it start to happen just let it, okay?”

“Fine,” Terezi whispered. “Don't make me regret this.”

“Susurratin' won't be savin' you,” the subjugglator rumbled. “For truly do the Messiahs work in miraculous ways, that the two most loathsome of souls should deliver themselves up for judgment. Fiddleback and Forktongue, I command you to mother fuckin' _kneel_.”

The enervating cold enveloped Terezi once more, driving her to one knee. Vriska followed close behind.

The subjugglator chuckled, freeing its club and taking a few swings to loosen its arm. “There you go, gettin' your submission on. Much better.”

Tiny claws scrabbled over Terezi's thinkpan, the sensation cutting through the cold. She felt an instinctive urge to shake them off. She resisted the impulse. Whatever Vriska was up to could be their only shot at survival.

The subjugglator took another practice swing, then brought its club up to rest across its shoulder. “Who gets the cull first? Forktongue, maybe you can offer some guidance — is it you or Fiddleback?”

The claws found an entrance. Terezi made no effort to shut them out. She winced as she felt them burrowing; it was not a welcome feeling, but as they dug she felt the cold lessen. Something was happening; something was pushing outward through her mind, a force of will fighting against the chucklevoodoos.

“Time's a-wasting, Forktongue. Make your decision.”

There were no more claws, no more scrabbling, no more cold. They had been replaced by the oddest sensation of warmth, _proximity_ , as though someone had wrapped her mind in a tight embrace to shield it from depredation.

_Don't worry, Pyrope. I got you._

Vriska's voice, but originating from within Terezi's head, like she was thinking the words herself.

_I don't know how long I can keep this up, but I promise I won't let that bastard in._

Can you really take all that abuse?

 _Don't get me wrong, soaking up two minds worth of clown garbage fucking_ sucks _, but I'll live._ _Just lead and I'll follow, okay?_

Try not to overextend yourself.

_Like I said, I'll live._

“You like jokes, right?” Terezi said, raising her head.

“Kickin' the righteous mirth is a virtue, yes.”

“Well I got a joke for you — what wears too much greasepaint, smells like an acre of dead livestock, and isn't half as badass as it thinks it is?”

“Gracious of you to volunteer to go first, sister.”

Time slowed for her once more.

The subjugglator swinging its club in a wide arc, aimed at her head.

Vriska rising to her feet, stepping forward, lashing out with her sword.

The subjugglator's club halting as Vriska's parry bit deep into it.

Vriska being pushed back by the force of the blow, sliding along on the soles of her boots, but holding her guard steady

The subjugglator's brow knitting in consternation.

“That all you got? Please,” Vriska growled, breathing hard with the effort of maintaining both physical and mental protection for Terezi. “I was raised by scarier than you.”

Terezi pushed off, throwing herself past the subjugglator, under its arm, cutting a gouge into its side in passing. She skidded to a halt and wheeled around, the subjugglator's roar of rage filling her ears. A flick of her wrist sent drops of purple spattering across the balcony stones.

The subjugglator retaliated, striking Vriska a staggering blow with its club that smashed through her guard, knocking her prone, then raised its foot to crush her.

“No!” Terezi cried. She lunged, leaped, grabbed a fistful of the subjugglator's hair and clambered up its back, her sword turned down to stab into the gap between the subjugglator's shoulders. “Don't you _dare_ hurt her!”

The subjugglator twisted and bucked, trying to throw her off. With the creature distracted, Vriska aimed her pistol between its eyes and fired. The shot jerked its head back, provoking another enraged roar. “Y'all are beginning to _work a fuckin' ordeal on my patience!_ ”

Vriska took a kick to the ribs and was sent sprawling across the balcony. Ignoring Terezi's repeated stabbings in search of its vital organs, the subjugglator whipped its body forward with such suddenness that she lost her grip. She tumbled to the ground, controlling her landing, turning it into a roll that brought her up to a standing position just as the pursuing subjugglator reached her. Her arm whipped out, running on pure muscle memory, to deliver a stop cut that skipped the tip of her sword across its face at eye level. The subjugglator let out a howl but still came onward, bringing its club around in a swing just barely too quick for Terezi to fully avoid. It caught her in the side, lifting her from her feet, knocking the wind out of her and sending a numbing explosion of pain through her body from head to toe. She traveled several feet before landing next to Vriska.

The subjugglator did not follow up on its advantage, instead clutching at its face and snarling. “My eyes! You little tealblood bitch, you'll rue the _motherfuckin' night!_ ”

“Well, that's score one for the good guys,” Vriska groaned, pulling herself to her feet. She reached down to help Terezi.

“How are you holding up?” Terezi said, trying to ignore the pain in her side.

“Oh, I'm great. Never been better.”

“You're being flippant.”

“Nothing gets past you.”

“Hopefully it won't be much longer until Megido does whatever she's going to do.”

Terezi flashed a crescent moon grin at the struggling subjugglator. “Not as easy as I make it look, is it? Don't worry, you get used to it.”

“I don't need to be able to see to wring your neck,” the subjugglator said.

It was on them before they could prepare themselves, striking wildly with its club, pushing them towards the door into the tower, battering them relentlessly. They fought back as best they could, but no matter the wounds they inflicted the subjugglator pressed on heedless of injury.

Cold began to seep back in at the edges of Terezi's mind. Vriska's mental ward was failing as she weakened.

They fell back through the door, unable to offer more than token resistance.

“Got any ideas?” Vriska said.

The subjugglator ducked under the door frame, taking its time to reach them, savoring its inevitable victory.

“Nope,” Terezi said.

“Damn.”

“Looks like this is bein' the end for you, sisters!” the subjugglator crowed, holding its arms wide, smiling gruesomely through the sheet of purple ichor that had replaced its greasepaint. “Nowhere left to run, nowhere left to...”

It trailed off, tilting its head to the side to listen.

Cries of terror from outside — the clergy that had gathered in the street below to await their champion's victory had, as one, begun to scream.

“What the motherfuck is goin' on? What are you?” Something behind them had grabbed the subjugglator's attention, even through its blindness.

Megido hovered in midair, limbs dangling loose, head lolling, a marionette with her strings cut. Wisps of pale mist were creeping up through the floorboards and twisting around her. She raised her head and stared blankly with eyes gone luminescent white.

“They come,” she said, her voice hollow.

More screams joined the chorus from inside the tower, accompanied by pounding footfalls as the clowns fled from whatever was answering Megido's summons.

The mist rising from the floor grew thicker; forms were visible in it now: trolls, ethereal in body, with hazy features and faded impressions of ancient clothing upon their backs.

The long-dead denizens of the ancient Iron Horn had answered Megido's call.

Vriska shuddered, her eyes rolled back in her head, and she dropped.

The ghosts surged forward in a wailing tide to swarm the subjugglator, pushing it back out onto the balcony. Their raking, spectral fingers drew no blood, but the subjugglator recoiled all the same. “Get offa me! Get back!”

How many people, Terezi wondered, could say they'd heard fear in subjugglator's voice?

She charged after them, ignoring the wave of horrible cold pouring over her with the disappearance of Vriska's wards, dodging between wild swings of the subjugglator's club. She slipping inside its reach, close enough for the stench of the dried blood covering it to be choking, and hacked away with a borderline crazed need to cause as much damage as possible while she had the chance.

The subjugglator grasped for her. She skipped back to avoid it, then flowed into the opening it left, seeing with a serene clarity the path to the kill.

Her sword pierced the subjugglator's throat, sliding in up to the hilt.

One final flailing blow from the massive troll caught her upside the head, knocking her back and making her lose her grip on her weapon.

The subjugglator tottered backwards, wheezing around the steel.

“Fuckin' unbelievable,” it gurgled.

It crashed through the balcony railing and plunged into darkness, taking Terezi's sword with it.

Megido drifted out onto the balcony, still hovering, turning to Terezi with the same kind of unnatural smoothness that Kanaya had shown during their first meeting in the hold of the _Incarnadine_.

Terezi swallowed hard, trying to bring some moisture back to a mouth that had gone dry. “What did you do to Vriska?”

“I did nothing. She did it to herself,” Megido replied with all the warmth of the grave.

“Well make it stop!”

“I cannot. And even if I could, I do not know if I would. It is something of her own making, and she will suffer it for as long as she desires. I will clear a path to the nearest entrance to the catacombs. Do what you came to do, but do not leave the tower. I will return.”

With that Megido disappeared below the lip of the balcony. The ghosts followed her, forming a procession in her wake.

Back inside the tower, Vriska lay on her side with eyes half lidded and unfocused. Terezi knelt by her.

“Vriska?”

No response.

Terezi reached to touch her. The physical contact made her flinch. A whimper escaped her lips. “I'm sorry, I'm sorry.”

“Was it the ghosts? They're gone. It's okay.”

“I'm sorry. It was a bad night, it won't happen again. I'll get you twice as many tomorrow, I promise.”

“There's no one here, Vriska. It's just me. I'm not going to hurt —”

Vriska curled in on herself, knees drawn up to her chest and her hands clamped over her ears. “You bloated harridan! Do you never sleep? I can't do it anymore! I'll throw myself off the top of this hive! That'll show you! I'll be dead and you'll starve and _you'll deserve it!_ ”

Terezi was at a loss; she'd never had to deal with something like this before and had certainly never expected it from Vriska.

It made something deep inside her _hurt_. She wished that she possessed Vriska's abilities, that she could wick away whatever torment Vriska was experiencing just as Vriska had held off the influence of the subjugglator.

But of course she had no powers to call her own. She was unable, as always, to help anyone. Just as she'd been forced to stand idly by while innocents suffered during her time with the Cruelest Bar, now she was forced to watch someone for whom she had... well, honestly _very confused feelings for_ suffer at the hands of her own subconscious.

No, absolutely not. She was not going to accept this. She refused to allow this to continue.

Taking Vriska by the chin, she forced the seagrift to face upwards.

“I don't know if you can hear me,” Terezi said, “but I'm pretty damn sure you can feel me. So apologies in advance if you find this invasive.”

She laid her forehead against Vriska's. It was clammy, slick with sweat. She didn't know how Vriska's telepathic senses worked, how they perceived others, but maybe, just maybe if she put herself as squarely front-and-center in them as possible, she might cut through whatever nightmare Vriska was experiencing.

She forced herself to ignore the sounds of Vriska's pleading, forced herself to push away the sympathetic pain she felt for the woman, forced herself to conjure up the most comforting thoughts she could imagine.

Their flight from Vennah. Vriska at the wheel of the _Incarnadine_ with a cocky grin, contemptuous of the danger that faced them. She heard Vriska's voice now as clearly as she had then:

_Who do you think you fucking hired, Pyrope? I could do this in my sleep._

Ordred, the Hive of the Blue Roses. Vriska reclining against the bar with all her trickster goddess glee at the prospect of incipient havoc.

_They’re gonna get a crash course in shit getting real tonight._

Ordred again. Vriska filled with righteous indignation on Terezi's behalf, staring down Lyssis Alecto, practically a being out of legend, in a way that Terezi could never manage.

_She’s got more strength in her than all you other screws put together!_

Terezi felt her fingers twine in Vriska's hair, still in braids but thankfully without the fish hooks, of their own accord.

“Ignore everything else you're seeing,” she said. “Ignore everything else you're hearing. Whatever it is, if it wants to get to you, it'll have to go through _me_ first. Do you understand?”

It seemed to have an effect; Vriska began to emerge from the recesses of her own head, her eyes focusing. She sat up and looked around, blinking.

“What the hell happened?” she said. “I remember Megido breaking my focus, then I took two barrels of bad clown noise straight to the cranial plates and everything after that gets weird.”

Terezi sat back, breathing a sigh of relief.

“You slept through my glorious victory. We were short a menial drudge to carry my hero's palanquin. How typical of your thoughtless ass, Serket.”

“You killed that huge bastard all on your own?”

“Megido helped, in her way. She's gone to clear our route back to the tunnels, so we should do what we came here to do.”

“Great, help me up.”

Terezi took her by the hand and hauled her to her feet.

“Feels like I'm always getting my ass kicked on your watch,” Vriska said. “You, uh... you won't tell anyone about this, right?

“Nothing will leave this room.”

* * *

 

**Meanwhile...**

 

The beat to quarters thrummed out over the ships of the detachment. The full might of its fifteen ships, plus attendant cutters, was brought to bear on the Iron Horn's upper city. Decks were cleared and guns were run out, raised to maximum elevation. Mortars were prepared to fire with heavy explosive carcass shot piled next to them in neat pyramids. Aboard the larger ships, the _Puissant_ included, metal racks preloaded with crude rockets were raised from the holds by jib crane and fitted to the hulls. Lanterns flashed up and down the line, signaling readiness for further orders.

“Tell me, madam,” Dumane said, watching the lanterns with an appraising air, “where were you during the war?”

Alecto stood beside him, arms crossed, impatient to be on her way. “The capital. It was believed that I would be of more value in the lectureblock than the field.”

“If I may be so bold, that seems a sore misuse of your abilities.”

“It's just as well. Military commissariat work is a young troll's game, with all that marching and jumping in and out of ditches and... oh, hell, I don't know, digging latrines?”

“Can't say I've ever had the pleasure of any of that. Dirtscrabbler duties, the lot. I myself was sent to Grozim under the command of Admiral Malvou. Severe old girl, valued results, I believe you would get along with her. She liked to hear that we were keeping our lowbloods thoroughly flogged to encourage the others. Anyhow, I maintained the blockade of Grozim for several perigees before, one night, I received a messenger-featherbeast from the Admiral bearing a very terse note. 'Dumane,' she wrote, 'I hear with some dismay that tuber-eater city is still standing. Do the needful.'”

“She did not want the city taken intact?”

“So it seemed. I was not inclined towards mercy at that point anyway — we had given the garrison very favorable terms and they refused to capitulate.”

He paused to blow a few smoke rings. “I was thorough. I understand they only finished rebuilding Grozim this past sweep. I intend to be similarly thorough here, so understand that once you are ashore your safety is no longer my concern.”

“Noted, Commodore.”

Dumane nodded. “Very well, we will begin shortly. Good hunting, Barristerror.”

He left her, walking the length of the ship, pausing to offer a little invective to the lowbloods working at securing the rocket racks before letting himself into the _Puissant's_ stateroom beneath the quarterdeck. Within waited one of Ampora's vile adjutants, already foaming and twitching in the throes of a connection with its opposite number.

Dumane saluted instinctively, despite the Admiral being separated from him by God knew how many miles. “Preparations are nearly complete, sir.”

“'Bout time,” Ampora said through the adjutant's mouth, “I was fixin' to sprout some gray hairs over here waitin' for you to move your ships into formation. Do you always drag your ass like this, Dumane?”

“One does not rush the reduction of a city, sir.”

“Y'know this is why you still don't have a proper commission yet, right? You'll be stuck a commodore forever because you don't act without an annotated plan a flippin' engagement written up.”

Dumane ground his teeth, biting back a pointed reply.

“My only concern is that I have the approval of the Admiralty.”

“Yeah, yeah, you're covered, don't worry. The Eccsleaziarchy has been evaluated to be a clear and present danger to the state by myself and the other Lords, and as such you are authorized to use all necessary force against them. Have fun.”

“And the Barristerror, sir?”

“What about her?”

“She seems dead set on —”

“Lemme cut you off there, Dumane. The Barristerror can do whatever damn fool thing enters her head. She's redundant for my purposes now; I've arranged a more favorable agreement for us.”

Dumane's hand balled into a fist.

“So this was all a... a sideshow then?”

“Nah, I was fairly invested in it for a while there. But sometimes your Plan B bears enough fruit to become your Plan A, so as far as I'm concerned the yapwitch is on her own. I'm transmittin' you some coordinates; once the clowns are dealt with, get under way for them.”

The adjutant seized a pen and pad and spasmodically wrote a few numbers down.

Dumane took them.

“These are in the disputed territories,” he said after giving the coordinates a glance. “The Principalities will be outraged.”

“The Principalities will be waitin' for you. I need a fleet at my back to look impressive. Have to show these tuber-eaters that a mutually beneficial partnership won't be lackin' in teeth on our side.”

“You've been _bargaining_ with them? This is treason!”

“Pfft, the Condesce knows already. It's with her blessin'. A few concessions a territory we seized, amountin' to little more than a bunch of frozen tundra and some illiterate serfs, plus the Militant for whatever idiot purpose they intend to use him for, and we've got ourselves enough mercenary troops to put down this little insurrection. Surprise surprise, there's plenty of trolls in the Tsaritsa's cabinet that would prefer to have a nominal ally to their west so they can refocus towards internal issues. That's a whole pile a problems solved at once. Just let the seagrift vessel go unmolested; I want to make that capture myself. It's my personal payout from this agreement.”

“So that's what this shakes out to in the end? Your unrequited black desires?”

The adjutant wrenched its body horribly in concert with Ampora's anger.

“I'll thank you, _Commodore_ , to not offer comment on things above your bleedin' station!”

Dumane saluted again to give himself something to do with his hands that didn't involve strangling the adjutant.

“As you say, _sir_.”

“Don't think I don't hear that tone. Ampora out.”

The adjutant went slack, its connection severed.

“God help us all,” Dumane said to no one.

* * *

 

**Minutes in the future...**

 

The great chain unwound from its spool, making a deafening racket. Its stranglehold on the Iron Horn slackened as it went plunging into the waters of the strait, opening the way into the seas beyond.

“That's it,” Terezi said. “Now we wait for Megido.”

“Yeah, I'll be so thrilled to see her face again. I'll be outside; I need some air.”

Vriska stalked out onto the balcony, leaving Terezi to slump to the floor, leaning against the wall. Another narrow escape from certain death. She didn't know how many more she had in her.

She rolled the cane-sheath of her sword back and forth in her hands. Already she missed the feeling of the dragon's head handle under her fingers, the worn down spot over its eye where her thumb would rest and trace little circles while she thought. How many lives had she taken with that blade? How many really deserved it? Regardless, it was gone now, taken from her by the Eccsleaziarchy along with the Cruelest Bar and every other trapping of a life she'd sacrificed so much to escape.

A noise from out on the balcony caught her attention: the sound of Vriska suddenly seizing the railing and leaning on it hard, doubling over it and retching.

Terezi stood, raising fresh protests from her limbs, and shuffled out to stand next to Vriska.

“You overextended yourself,” she said.

“I'm fine.”

“You are not fine.”

“Yes, I am!”

“You've got a funny way of showing it.”

She moved in closer, laid her cheek on the taller woman's shoulder and slid her arm around her waist.

Vriska tensed.

“You have nothing to be ashamed of,” Terezi said. “You did great; I'd be dead without you. I'd be dead ten times over without you.”

Vriska delicately removed one hand from the railing, as though fearing she'd go tumbling into space without it, and pulled Terezi closer.

They stayed like that for a while, listening to the rain patter around them, taking in the steppe-chilled air.

“Lanterns,” Vriska said, breaking the silence after a few minutes.

“What?”

“Lanterns in the strait. Someone's out there. A lot of someones.”

She released Terezi, straightened up, and pulled a spyglass from her coat. It unfolded with a snap as she held it to her eye, muttering profanities.

“The Admiralty, son of a bitch.”

“Don't tell me we're under quarantine _again.”_

“No, no. Not a line of blockade.”

She lowered the spyglass and started backing away from the railing. “We need to get out of this tower.”

“Why? What is it?”

“Because we're at the top of the tallest building in the city and there's a fleet in the harbor drawn up in a firing line. We're sitting aquatic featherbeasts here.”

“Megido said —”

Vriska grabbed her arm and started pulling her towards the hatch. “Fuck Megido! We can find her later, assuming we don't die in the next thirty seconds!”

* * *

 

**Moments in the past...**

 

“Mister Letraq!” Dumane called, emerging onto the _Puissant's_ deck.

“Aye, Commodore?”

“Signal the detachment: all guns, fire at will.”

“As you say Commodore.”

* * *

  

**Moments in the future...**

 

Daybreak arrived early to the Iron Horn, lit by scores of lances of flame stabbing into the sky from the waters of the strait. The rockets shrieked as they streaked down upon the city, followed by the bass thudding of mortars and the crashing thunder of cannons. Buildings shattered under the assault, reduced to clouds of burning splinters. What few concentrated pockets of clowns that were left in the initial targeted areas, cowering in Megido's wake, barely had time to realize what was happening before they were obliterated under the mailed fist of the Admiralty's wrath.

The upper tower trembled as they hurried down the stairs, bits of masonry peppering their hair as they went. Had the attack come from the open ocean beyond the strait they would have had more time, but with it coming from inside the strait they were lucky they weren't dead already. The second volley came close on the heels of the first, announcing its arrival with a few direct hits on the tower that knocked holes in the walls ahead of them. A mortar's carcass shot burst prematurely just outside a window as they passed, hurling fragments of glass at them and nearly knocking them from their feet. More rockets followed behind, slamming into the Citadel walls and tearing huge chunks from the antiquated fortification.

They emerged from the tower as its upper floors collapsed. Hundreds of tons of stone rained down into the courtyard behind them, no doubt to the delight of some gunner aboard one of the ships in the strait. Terezi imagined him, as she sprinted through the Citadel gates mere seconds before they were buried beneath the wreckage of the tower, as an evil doppelganger of the _Incarnadine's_ Mister Pellew, stroking his obligatory goatee with wicked glee as he tried to kill two trolls who he had never met and certainly could bear no personal malice.

In her exhausted state, the whole production currently unfolding around her struck her as absurd. Was this all _really_ necessary?

She didn't get a chance to explore the topic further. Her world was filled with flying debris as the building next to her took a direct hit from explosive shot and collapsed into the street. She threw herself to the ground, covering her head with her arms to deflect a few bits of ballistic stone and wood. Further salvos rained down around her as she wriggled into the flimsy cover provided by the collapsed building. It wouldn't stop a direct hit, but hopefully it would absorb flying detritus well enough to keep her from dying to a near miss.

She waited, deafened and numbed by endless explosions, for the apocalyptic rain to pass.

Gradually the barrage lessened as the Admiralty gunners walked their fire elsewhere, satisfied that this particular section of the city had been adequately flattened.

Terezi emerged, pushing aside loose rubble that had slid down in great drifts from the destroyed buildings, into a wasteland. For a hundred yards in every direction, not a single structure remained intact. Those buildings that hadn't been smashed entirely leaned precariously or sported gaping wounds that exposed their internal structures. And still the bombardment continued, focused elsewhere but undiminished. Mortar shells whistled overhead, bursting with thumps behind the broken roofs around her, the contrails of rockets providing intermittent lighting for the scene.

“Vriska?” she called. “Are you there?”

No reply came. She tried again a few times to similar results.

There was of course the possibility that Vriska was dead, but it struck Terezi as unlikely. Call it a hunch, or hopeless optimism, but the idea of the seagrift dying to something as pedestrian as an artillery strike seemed... well, that happened to people who weren't Vriska Serket, put it like that.

She wandered the streets, calling out on occasion, receiving no response, growing frustrated. Honestly, it was just her luck that this would happen right as things were gelling for her.

A cloud of acrid smoke rolled in, the product of something flammable in the vicinity being touched off by the Admiralty's attentions. She scurried away as quickly as she could, coughing and cursing, truly blind now. The city was a murky blur through which she reeled without direction, bumping into things, tripping over others, spewing a truly Karkat-esque litany of profanity the whole way. The only guidepost she had was the knowledge that she should head _away_ from the explosions.

“You slitneck assholes!” she swore with a vengeance after barking her shin on some debris. “I should be in a pile somewhere getting the base of my horns massaged by a grateful seagrift as repayment for my _bottomless stockpile of patience and fucking emotional support!_ But _noooooooo!_ You had to flop your bulges on the table and make me deal with the consequences! I swear I'll find a way to make all of you _pay for this!”_

“Will you now?” said an agonizingly familiar voice in a tone keyed specifically to plunge an icepick of dread into Terezi's spine.

The wind, possessed of a sense of dramatic timing, kicked up, blowing away the smoke to reveal Lyssis Alecto standing in the street behind her.

“Do you see?” she said, gesturing to encompass the surrounding ruins. “I told you, and you refused to listen. Look at what your arrogance has wrought.”

Terezi took a step back, instinctively preparing to draw steel she no longer had. Even if the benefits of being armed would be negligible, at least she would have something to put between herself and the Barristerror.

Well, she wasn't entirely unarmed. The little snub-nosed pistol from the Vennah indigo had been chafing her wrist raw with its spring-loaded deployment system for the entire night. It wasn't much, but it was all she had.

“I didn't force everyone to lose their damn minds. You all did that on your own.”

“Even now you try to deny your responsibility!”

Something inside Terezi snapped. Maybe it was a vestige left behind by Vriska's intrusions, a seed of the woman's mulish stubbornness. Or maybe it had been there all along, waiting to be pushed far enough to awaken. She had killed a subjugglator, God damn it. She was being shot at by what felt like the entire Imperial Admiralty. She was not going to stand there and be lectured like a wiggler yet _a-fucking-gain_ by some withered old crone who was so myopic and blinkered by her idiotic traditions she made Terezi look like she possessed the eyesight of a swoopshrike by comparison.

“Oh yes, _my responsibility_ for this lunacy. Yes I think you've got me dead to rights there, Lyssis. I personally went around to the entire leadership of this stultifying Empire and whispered into peoples auriculars as they slept that they should go totally shithive maggots over one prison escape. One! Singular!”

“And now you casually —”

“No! Nonono! Shut up! I know your whole routine by heart now! My turn to talk!”

Terezi began walking back and forth, holding her chin.

“So first I maliciously spring the Militant from the Maze, and by the way if you'd ever met the man you'd understand why I'm so gobsmacked at the idea of that fuming twit being the linchpin behind this mess. Anyway, I sprang the Militant, then subtly implanted the idea for you and the rest of the upper echelons of the Cruelest Bar to _completely_ screw the pooch by cutting the Eccsleaziarchy out of attempts to recapture him. Good job by the way, some flawless casework there.”

“Be quiet.”

“Make me. And after I worked my insidious magyycks on the Bar, I took to flight on wings of pure darkness and subliminally suggested to the Lord Admirals that they shell an Imperial city! My God, does my criminality know no bounds? Am I hewing close to your justification for this being my fault?”

“You— ”

“Are you taking marching orders from Eridan Ampora? You are aware that the only reason he's a Lord is because he's Feferi Peixes' moirail, right? The man's too incompetent to even keep a kismesis, and you're letting him call the shots? Are you that pathetic?”

“I—“

“You know what I think?” Terezi said, pointing a finger at Alecto. “I think you need all this insane bullshit to be my fault. You mentally cannot deal with the idea that this is all happening due to something outside your control. You need this because you're afraid. You're afraid and it keeps you from seeing the rot that's eaten away at all the joists that hold the Empire together. You believe that the institutions cannot fail, but rather that _we fail them_. You're so reliant on the way things are that you can't let yourself understand that sometimes things that are rotten and _wrong_ need to knocked down so that something worthwhile can be built in their place. You'll sit in your crumbling hive of evil little laws, watching the place slowly decay around you, and think to yourself that this is as good as it gets. What a miserable existence you lead, to have replaced any inkling of belief that the world can be made better with a fanatical belief that _this_ is the best of all possible worlds.”

“And you see this all so clearly?” Alecto snarled.

“Of course not! I see nothing!” Terezi cackled. “The prosecution is _blind_ , your honor! It's just so obvious to anyone who isn't a total _coward_ that I can't help but notice!”

“Yes, I’m afraid!” Alecto shouted. “You have lived your whole life in a blessed time; you have no idea what it’s like when the order of things breaks apart into pieces, what it’s like when all the world becomes as sand and is swept away by the tide. I am afraid, Terezi, because I have seen this all before and I know what comes of it.”

Terezi cackled again and wished that she still had her cane so that she could punctuate her disdain with an authoritative rap against the street cobbles. “Maybe it should be swept away, what comes after could hardly be any worse. I'm disappointed in you, Lyssis. I had my suspicions, but I was hoping for a better motivation for your monstrous acts than something as banal as fear.”

“I’m a monster to you?”

“Of the worst kind. And believe me, I associate with monsters on the regular these nights. At least they don't pretend they're righteous.”

Alecto stared at her feet. She let her sword-arm hang limp at her side.

“Maybe I am a monster,” she said. “I have to be one. If you’d seen what I have, what we as a people are capable of when madness is turned loose on the world, you’d understand. I told you once of the fire and what waits outside it, yes? I was not speaking in hypotheticals. I know the things that wait in the dark firsthand. You are not the first to cause destruction like this; the Sufferer was not the last. We consume ourselves at the slightest provocation. I tried to warn you, and you did not listen. There is no better world coming. None will be saved.”

“Hah! Warn me? Don't flatter yourself. No, what you did was try to terrorize me, to leave me taking fright at my own shadow just like you do. You wanted me to throw myself gratefully into the arms of a system that would destroy me because you let it destroy you.”

“Well then what would you have me do under those circumstances? If it's all I had to believe in, can I be faulted for doing so?”

“I didn’t.”

Alecto’s sword cut the air. “You had that luxury! I didn’t! Do you think I was hatched like this? As this... _thing_? This _implement_ , that serves only to cause suffering and inspire terror? Do you think I never felt passion for something higher than the sight of blood sluicing through the gutter? I would have died, if I had allowed myself to! But I couldn’t, because even if it was terrible I couldn’t abandon my duty to the Empire.”

“Your duty is bullshit, another convenient word you use to abdicate responsibility for your choices. It must really scorch your ass that the silly little blind girl slipped the noose that you threw yourself into. That's it, isn't it? That's why you took this assignment. All that drivel about wanting me rehabilitated was papering over your need to prove that I was in the wrong, and you were in the right.”

Alecto said nothing.

“You can still prove that you're as tough as the blind girl. You can make that choice now — disappear, they won’t follow you. There’s no one left to follow you.”

“What?” It was more a breath than a word.

“You haven't heard? The Upper Courtblock has fallen, the Cruelest Bar is scattered. Anyone who knows of you is either dead or in hiding. It can end, all of it, the lies, the fear. You just need to allow it to end.”

Alecto sagged. Whatever infernal energy it was that had held her up for so long was gone, leaving nothing behind. There was no more Barristerror, only a woman facing a vast and impenetrable darkness alone.

“You're lying,” she said.

“Do you know me to be much of a liar? It hurt me too at first, but I think now I understand that it had to happen.”

“I've failed. I should have been there to die defending it instead of chasing you. I've failed.”

“Oh my fucking God,” Terezi moaned, slapping her forehead. “Do you still think you owe them anything? Is this how Karkat feels all the time, preaching to the clueless? Lyssis, this might be the worst thing you could've done to me — I suddenly sympathize with Karkat Vantas.”

“You would have me just walk away?” She was on the verge of tears. “What would I do?”

“Whatever you please; It's not my job to figure these things out for you. Maybe take up shatranj?”

“A... a board game?”

“It's diverting. I think you'd be good at it.”

“I...”

“Listen, Barristerror, it sounds like you've got a long road ahead of you, so if it's all the same to you I'm just going to go ahead and leave you to it. There's a seagrift wandering around loose and I should probably find her before she does something stupid.”

In one iteration of reality, it ended there. Terezi Pyrope walked away, and Lyssis Alecto disappeared into the coming storm. Her fate is invisible to us, receding into the depths of possibly. Perhaps she even went on to find something resembling happiness in the sweeps left to her. One might imagine a simple hive in the deepening dusk with a garden scrupulously free of weeds.

In this iteration of reality, Lyssis Alecto's tearing scream of rage caused Terezi Pyrope to turn just in time to receive a blade in the stomach.

“After all you’ve done,” Alecto shouted. "After all you’ve taken from me, you _presume_ to offer me a choice? Walk away? Give up everything? As though you're bestowing some manner of fucking _gift_ upon me? You impudent, upjumped little whelp! The Handmaid will have to pry my teeth from your throat to claim you!”

Terezi struggled to hold herself upright. She could taste blood rising at the back of her mouth.

Alecto seized her by the coat and jerked her weapon loose from Terezi’s stomach, raising it in preparation for another stab that would surely kill Terezi outright.

“I’m sorry, Lyssis,” Terezi said.

“Too late!”

“No, I mean for this.”

She flicked her wrist, deploying the snub pistol into her hand.

It didn’t _bang_ like Vriska’s guns, instead letting out a sad _pop_ like a twelfth perigee’s eve cracker. Terezi wasn’t sure it hadn’t misfired until she smelled, over the scent of her own approaching death and the gunpowder smoke, the teal smear that spread across Alecto’s chest.

She felt Alecto’s grip slacken, then fall away. The Barristerror’s sword clanged on the stones as she collapsed.

Alecto's death barely registered, or maybe Terezi didn't care. She would be joining the old woman sooner rather than later.

It didn't hurt.

Nothing did.

The world rose to meet her. How kind of it to catch her.

A few rockets passed overhead, their contrails leaving bright lines across her fading senses, all candy apple red and citrusy orange.

There were worse things to be the last thing she ever smelled.

Someone was running towards her, crying her name. The voice struck a chord in her heart that made her consider fighting the inevitable for a little longer.

The sentiment passed quickly. It would be so easy to let go

Easy as falling off a log.

Easy as dying.

Hands gripped her shoulders, shaking her. The voice was in hysterics.

“No, keep your eyes open! Don't leave me!”

 

And then

 

there was nothing.

 

* * *

 

 

**Nights in the future...**

 

The first two nights on Nezbor passed quietly, a welcome respite from life aboard the _Incarnadine_ and from the exigencies of their mission. Zhymet didn't make much of an effort to interact with them, instead spending most of his time poring over reports from the Principalities intelligence network that covered the disputed territories (in direct contravention of a number of significant treaties). Nevertheless, if pressed, he proved to be courteous to a fault and quick to satisfy whatever request was made of him to the best of his abilities. Terezi concluded, on the third night, that he was the product of some specialized finishing schoolfeeder that taught its pupils not only the proper fork for eating shellfish, but also the proper fork for puncturing the windpipe of the troll sitting next to them. It was obvious that he considered the two women to be his guests, but a niggling suspicion in the back of Terezi's head kept repeating the word _asset_ and reminding her of what Alecto had said to her in Ordred.

What are assets for if not to be expended?

This suspicion blossomed into full-blown paranoia on the third day, wrenching Terezi from her sleep and dragging her from her recuperacoon. She staved it off long enough to splash herself clean of sopor in the cramped half-ablutionblock that abutted her room and dress herself, then carefully opened the door into the long main room of the hive.

Zhymet's door was ajar, his respiteblock unoccupied.

She walked to the front door of the hive and cracked it. The sky outside was heavily overcast, with a light flurry of snow. There was a mishmash of footprints in the snow on the ground, coming and going from the hive, with one set leading away from the door around the side of the hive. Whoever had made the last set was at the moment engaged in beating the absolute hell out of something, if the sounds coming from the yard in that direction were anything to go by.

She stuck her head around the corner to find Vriska hacking away at a training dummy, a crude wooden torso wrapped in cords of rope, with her sword. The sundered bits of another dummy lay piled in a heap off to one side, no doubt a prior victim of her ministrations. Despite the chill in the air she had removed her coat and left it folded on a stump nearby, a bottle nestled in it with the delicacy of a featherbeast egg.

Wood splintered as Vriska brought her heavy saber down to chop at the joining of the dummy's neck and shoulder, cleaving halfway through its torso before stopping. She left the sword stuck there while she retrieved the bottle from on top of her coat and took a deep pull, then stood inspecting her mangled foe. Reaching some internal conclusion, she grabbed the sword and heaved, toppling the dummy to the ground, then stomped on its chest and wrenched the sword free. She held her blade up to peer along its cutting edge, then slid it into the scabbard at her hip.

“Having fun destroying our host's property?” Terezi said.

“Having fun watching me destroy it?” Vriska replied without turning around. She scooped up her coat and shrugged it on.

“The view was nice.”

“How would you know? You're blind.”

“You smell like blueberries when your blood is up. It pleases me.”

Vriska swagged up to her, tapping Terezi on the forehead with the mouth of her bottle. “Good to see your near-death experience didn't make you less of a creepy little stalker.”

“I'm the creepy one? At least I've never run my telepathy over your pan with all the eagerness of someone copping their first feel.”

“That feel I copped saved your life, you ingrate.”

“I hope you enjoyed it; you're never getting another one.”

Vriska shot her cuffs and snorted.

“I've had better,” she said.

“Lying! You're infatuated with my higher cortical functions. You want to hate-marry them and lavish them with your devotion forever and ever until death do you part.”

“You caught me. Inscrutable shortass neurotics are totally my thing.”

Terezi feigned a yawn. “If only gangly savages were mine. But seriously, enough of this. Our host is missing and I was prepared to be very paranoid about his absence until you distracted me. You didn't happen to clap a freakish seven-lobed eye on him in between mauling mannequins, did you?”

“Yeah, he was talking with a couple of guys dressed like fishertrolls in the main hall when I woke up. Couldn't tell what they were saying, they were all speaking that _zber-zner-tchner_ language of theirs, but the fishertrolls didn't think, act, or carry themselves like actual fishertrolls. So, y'know, wink wink, not spies at all, no sir.”

“Let me guess: he noticed you were awake and very obsequiously asked if he could do anything for you, to which you replied 'fuck yes, I need to break something _now_ , my man.' And then he gave you a bunch of bayonet-training dummies and a bottle of wine and excused himself in the company of these Legitimate Fishertrolls, capital letters,”

“That... may or may not be an accurate representation of what happened.”

Terezi pinched the bridge of her nose. “Well, I guess the good news is that his absence probably isn't related to selling us out. No intelligence agent worth his salt would conduct business like that where his dupes could walk in on the conversation, even if they don't speak the language.”

“Gotta admit, that's pretty good news by our standards.”

“I know, it's depressing.”

“Still, given all that shit he was saying about degenerating situations, I don't think it's all easy sailing for us.”

“Beyond a shadow of a doubt.”

“So... you're awake right now because you thought he was going to turn us over to someone?”

Terezi nodded. “Yes. And you?”

“Bad dreams, that's all. Do you want to maybe want to play some shatranj? To pass the time?”

“You expect me to believe that the infamous Captain Serket can be shaken by daymares?”

“Yeah, I can, alright? They're pretty bad daymares.”

“I assume they're related to that little trick you pulled in the Horn?”

Vriska scuffed at the snow with the toe of her boot.

“...Maybe.”

“Does it hurt?”

“That's a hell of a question, Pyrope.”

“It's a reasonable one from where I'm standing. I don't know very much about how the Eccsleaziarchy's powers work, but I also don't know that I would trade being stabbed in the gut for getting stabbed in the pan. I'm recovering, but how are you doing?”

“I... could use a distraction right now.”

* * *

 

**Nights in the Past...**

 

Her desperation carried her, driving her onward, holding her aloft with white-hot spars driven through her limbs. Blood pounded in her ears as she trudged through the ruined city, matching the sound of the bombardment as it walked inland away from her. While this meant that she was no longer in danger of being killed by a stray shell from the ships in the strait, it also meant that the clowns were free to emerge from whatever boltholes they'd hidden themselves in. She'd already run into a few, and while they were only lowly wrecktors she found it difficult to fight with a dying troll slung over one shoulder.

Worse still than feeling her friend(?) die in her arms, worse still than having to fend off fanatics with one hand, was the maddening _chittering_ that wouldn't get out of her head. Insatiable hunger that she'd left for dead long in the past that still, after all these sweeps, managed to find her in moments of weakness, worse this time than she'd ever felt before.

Pyrope was babbling deliriously, declining Trollatin verbs, _hic haec hoc huius huius huius,_ which did not do much to settle Vriska's mind.

Onwards she slogged through the dead city. Her last surge of strength was gone now, replaced only by a sucking despair that flooded her with a sapping weariness that not even the subjugglator could have created with all its evil arts.

Terezi was abandoning her, fading to a dim coal in her telepathic senses.

Things she had spent her whole life fleeing from caught up with her, dropping her to her knees.

_Worthless._

_Weak._

_Miserable little girl._

_How long did you think you could escape me?_

_You were hatched to serve and you failed. Now, you will die a failure twofold._

A large group of clergy must've been hiding nearby to wait out the Admiralty's assault. They were suddenly everywhere, surrounding her.

She couldn't stand.

She couldn't raise a hand in her own defense.

She'd been running for so long, halfway around the globe and back, and now she was finally run to ground.

_Just one little chop, girl, and it will be all over._

_Wasn't that the mercy you showed me?_

_There are so many waiting to greet you._

_Don't worry, you have eternity to get acquainted._

The top half of a felled hive came skidding out of the darkness, smearing a large portion of the encircling clowns beneath it. The rest took to their heels, gibbering about the Handmaid having found them.

Megido descended from on high, no longer wrapped in the spectral imprints of the dead.

Vriska freed a pistol from inside her coat. “Whatever you are,” she said, “you stay the fuck away from her.”

“What I am is your ticket out of here, Captain,” Megido replied. “And if you don't mind me saying, your threats might work better if your gun wasn't bent.”

Vriska glanced at the firearm — it must've caught one of the subjugglator's blows back at the tower, rendering it useless — then flipped it to grip it like a cudgel. “I'll beat you to death with it then. Just keep your distance.”

“You really care for her, don't you? That's good; it's keeping you alive right now. Otherwise, I'd snap your neck.”

“With a smile on your face, like when you did the priestess?”

“No, I'd be somber about it. Unlike some people, I don't take delight in the act.”

“Sure, offing the bigshot clown was all business for you.”

“Mostly, but sometimes you have to break something to let off a little steam. Anyway, even with all the corpses you've stacked up the archfreakon made you look like an orthodox Sufferite in comparison.”

Megido studied Terezi's unconscious form and tutted. She made a small gesture with one hand, lifting Terezi gently into the air.

“Hey!” Vriska shouted. “I told you to stay the fuck away!”

“She's dying quickly enough without you making it worse by lugging her around like a sack of grubmeal. I can be more delicate, and we can move faster. Can you walk?”

Vriska rose unsteadily. “I'll live.”

“To the dismay of the rest of the world. C'mon, there's an entrance to the catacombs up the street.”

* * *

 

**Nights in the future...**

 

Threshecutioner slew trumpetgoliath with a curt clack of ivory on ivory.

Zhymet's shatranj set was a tiny work of art, with intricate scrimshaw decorating even the lowliest piece. Terezi had to fight off a powerful urge to pop one into her mouth to get the full sensory bouquet.

Vriska's turn came and went to no great effect, her move may as have been made at random for all it gained her.

Another clack of ivory, another casualty. The entire game, and the one before it, had passed like this.

“Something's on your mind,” Terezi said.

Vriska's move was terrible, once again. “What makes you say that?”

“Because you're playing like shit.”

“Maybe I'm just an idiot that sucks at this game, did you ever consider that?”

“No, because I know it isn't true. And you never answered my question.”

“Which was?”

“Are you in pain? Psychic trauma doesn't strike me as something you rub dirt on and walk off.”

Vriska picked up her empress and turned the piece over in her hand.

“You were talking to your lusus, weren't you?” Terezi continued.

No reply.

“Vriska, I meant every word I said to you. She can't get to you, because _I will not let her.”_

The empress fell from Vriska's hand.

“I can still hear her,” she said. “She's never really gone. She's always there at the edge of everything, chittering away, demanding things from me that I can't provide. I killed her. I fucking killed her and it didn't help; all it takes is one slip and it's like she never went away. It's been bad before, but never like this. I'm never going to be free. I'm going to hear her until I die.”

Terezi reached across the board, knocking pieces over, to take Vriska by the hand. “What do you need from me to make it stop?”

“Stay with me. I'll take you anywhere you want to go. There's a few ports in the Shahdom where I haven't worn out my welcome yet: Tisfin, Perpos. We could find a place to lie low until the heat is off; they're always hiring bounty hunters, you'd be a natural. Or if you're not into that, we could... fuck, I don't know, go sightseeing? Just... please, don't leave me alone with all this shit in my head.”

Terezi laughed, not her customary cackle but a soft, relieved noise. “I thought you'd never ask.

* * *

Oh how they would talk, her classmates at the Bar and her former colleagues and her superiors, if they could peer through time to see her now. How they would gasp and natter and fuss to see her wrapped in the arms (sailcloth skin over knotted rope muscle over yardarm bone) of her fearsome seagrift (black powder smoke and tarred wood and a bright blue sneering disdain for propriety and decency and anything as complicated as a moral imperative to justify her drive to simply _live_.)

Let them talk; most of them were probably dead anyway. But she was alive, and she had found something, someone, more comforting than all the law and courtblocks and crumbling edifices in the world.

A light in a dark place, all her own.

Certainty where hers was lacking.

Associate by solemn compact, and partner in all her toils.

It felt _right._

A strange thought crossed Terezi's mind as she drifted off, with Vriska twitching in her sleep and murmuring to herself.

A single word, apropos of nothing.

_Thief._

Terezi was asleep before she could dwell on what it might mean.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me begin by saying that I didn't intend to introduce an Original Character Do Not Steal as a major character when I started this thing. The problem I faced was that I wanted there to be a big scary legislacerator antagonist, and the Homestuck Canon (such as it is) is sadly lacking in characters who would work in that role. I considered, briefly, using Neophyte Redglare, but decided that was stupid and wouldn't make any sense for a variety of reasons. So Lyssis Alecto was created and I've been of mixed feelings about her ever since. I'd like to thank everyone for tolerating her existence for this long, and I hope she was not too grating an inclusion. 
> 
> Because I'm heinous trash that can't be helped — her classpect is Knight of Rage, and her land is the Land of Pits and Pendulums. 
> 
> We're entering the endgame, friends. Thanks for sticking it out with me this long.


	15. Assurance

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "At a cardiac arrest, the first procedure is to take your own pulse."  
> \- 3rd Law of the House of God
> 
> Recommended listening:  
> [ No Longer Making Time, by Slowdive](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMSAELTTgrk)

Zhymet returned on the fourth night, haggard and carrying a message with him. “The reply from my colleagues in the field has arrived,” he said, sweeping a daycloak from his shoulders to hang over the back of a chair.

The two women looked up from their preoccupations — Vriska fiddling with a set of small tools, trying to work the bend out from the barrel of her disassembled pistol, and Terezi ruining one of Zhymet's books with her usual method of reading.

“Well? What's the situation?” Terezi said.

Zhymet gave the message one final glance, then threw it into the fire. “Nothing has changed; the coordinates you were given remain correct. However...” he trailed off, rubbing his hands together absent-mindedly. “I find myself uneasy with this.”

“Explain yourself, Mister Zhymet.”

“Are you concerned for us?” Vriska said, mockingly. “That's real cute of you.”

“I'm familiar enough with your accomplishments to know my time would be better spent feeling concern for anyone who sought to oppose you, Captain.”

“So what's bothering you?” Terezi said, archly.

“I don't know,” he replied. “Nagging paranoia, one does not survive long in my line of work without it. Nothing more. Might I make an unusual request of you?”

“I can't promise we'll grant it.”

“I wish to travel with you to deliver the Militant.”

“Why?”

“I'll spare you the dissection of factional politics in the Council of Princes that informs my desire and limit myself to saying that I am not on this island voluntarily. My assignment to the disputed territories is an exile, punishment for past associations that met with the displeasure of powerful individuals. I want to see which of my colleagues has been assigned to this project so that I may make a reasonable guess at which pack of twits on the Council is currently ascendant, and from there decide what my next course of action will be.”

“Why should I agree to this?”

“By all measures, you shouldn't.”

“You admit as much?”

“I put my faith in honesty overcoming my weak bargaining position.”

“Very frank of you.” She sat forward with fingers interlaced. “I'll be frank right back — you aren't the only paranoiac in the room. I don't trust you very much, and I don't trust your handlers at all.”

“Wise on both counts.”

“What courses of action are you evaluating?”

“Whether I should return to my exile quietly or flee to the Shahdom in a blind panic.”

“'Blind' panic? Are you mocking me, Mister Zhymet?”

Zhymet sputtered, a hint of jade creeping into his face. His head jerked downward into a show of deference. “Advocata Pyrope, I —”

Terezi snickered. “Relax, it's a joke. You're so proper and collected I couldn't help but try and rattle you a little. I will talk it over with my associate, but I make no promises.”

Vriska and Terezi stepped outside, walking to the far corner of the yard.

“He doesn't smell like he's lying,” Terezi said, “but he doesn't smell like much at all anyway. Couldn't even tell he was jade until he flushed.”

“And I couldn't get anything from him telepathically, either. He's been conditioned.”

“I've heard that word a lot, but I admit I'm unclear on what it means.”

Vriska pulled a face. “Kinda skeeves me out to talk about it, but... you remember Ampora's freak at Vennah?”

“How could could I forget?”

“That rig on his head was made from metal that's been modified by the Eccsleaziarchy to fuck with peoples minds. Take a telepath and fill 'em full of brass to your specifications and boom, you got yourself instant communication no matter where the two ends of the connection are, plus area denial for other telepaths such as yours truly. I figure our friend Mister Zhymet has a bolt screwed into his cranial plates riiiiiiiight here under his hair.” She tapped a finger on the back of her head. “Not enough to mess him up too bad, but enough to turn his thinkpan into something I don't want to touch.”

“Makes sense, insulating your spies against telepathic intrusion. He doesn't seem to affect you like the thing back in Vennah, though.”

“That's 'cause he's got no psionic abilities. Ampora's adjutants _broadcast_ that shit; it's like the difference between sticking your arm into a bunch of warm entrails and having them thrown at you.”

“Nice mental image.”

“Closest I can come to describing the sensation.”

“So, your assessment of the situation?”

“I dunno, he seems harmless enough and really what can he do on the ship that he couldn't do from here? If the stiff wants to get a bead on whether or not he should be running for his life, I don't feel like begrudging him that.”

“That's unusually charitable of you.”

“Well, I also don't mind keeping him where I can see him. The idea of leaving him back here, with those clockwork featherbeasts of his carrying messages about us, ain't one I'm fond of.”

“Fair point. While I still don't trust him, I don't have any concrete objections to his presence beyond that.”

“So we're taking him along?”

Terezi shrugged. “I guess!”

They entered the hive, rousing Zhymet from his reverie staring into the fire.

“Mister Zhymet,” Terezi said, “we have decided that you are welcome to accompany us.”

A fleeting expression of relief flitted across his face. “My thanks, Advocata, Captain. Give me a few minutes to gather my things and we may be on our way.”

* * *

 

A fishertroll's boat was hired down at Nezbor's docks, conveying the three trolls across the water to the waiting _Incarnadine._

“This ship is one of ours,” Zhymet said as they drew close.

“Yep,” Vriska replied.

“I hope the crew died well.”

“They sure as hell died.”

A rope ladder was lowered at Vriska's shouted orders, and one by one they climbed aboard. Terezi felt a strange sense of homecoming as she pulled herself over the rail onto the deck, feeling its familiar rocking under her feet, breathing the ship's smells again. Maybe this is what people meant when they talked about getting sea legs, or maybe it had something to do with the way Vriska gave her hand a little squeeze before slipping into the rush of activity on the deck, heading for Sollux. The _Incarnadine_ was Vriska's home; she wore the ship like a second skin, moving through the laboring crew with effortless ease like the hostess of a party walking the floor to make sure everyone's drinks were topped off. If she seemed untouchable on her own, aboard the _Incarnadine_ she may very well have been immortal.

Her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a quiet argument between a few of the crew who had seen the affectionate gesture — oh yes, the infamous book that the crew was running on their relationship. Of course Terezi was aware of it; she couldn't not be aware of it unless she sealed her auriculars with wax. It had started as a joke between a couple of trolls stuck up in the rigging during the midday watch, a wager of a couple of caegars that they might not even have remembered to collect on. From there it had grown little by little, slowly but increasing in speed as more trolls got in on the joke. A couple caegars turned to a few dozen, turned to a hundred, turned to several hundreds, and the joke suddenly became serious business that had required the original jokesters-turned-bookies to ask Sollux for help drawing up a sheet to keep track of all the bets that had been placed. Current reckoning put the pot at:

One thousand, one hundred and thirty-five caegars.

Two hundred and twelve Principalities _rugles_ , approximate value: ninety-seven caegars.

Twenty Shahdom _ghosraus_ , approximate value: one hundred and eighty caegars.

And one Shahdom _ogol_ , a huge pewter coin the size of plate, worth about half a caegar and only kept in circulation as a passive-aggressive way of communicating that the service or good that had just been purchased had been found to be substandard.

Naturally, with that amount of money on the line, arguments were to be expected at this point. Fistfights, as well — once, in the berths, Kanaya had to separate a pair of trolls by the scruffs of their necks after a heated debate had gotten out of hand.

Terezi wasn't sure how anyone expected to verify the outcome of the wager. Did the trolls betting on, say, caliginous expect some sort of formal announcement to confirm their victory? Did they picture Vriska standing on the quarterdeck — _This is your captain speaking. I'd just like to let everyone know that me and Pyrope are hate-banging now. It's super hot. Anyway, just FYI, no further business to discuss. Laaaaaaaaters._

“So who's this douchebag?” Sollux said, leaning to one side to glower at Zhymet over Vriska's shoulder. Zhymet didn't notice; he was too busy craning his head back to marvel like a total landlubber at the sight of trolls clambering through the rigging.

“Nobody important, just a Principalities spook who wants to observe the hand-off.”

“Wait, run that by me one more time — this guy's a fucking _spy?”_

“You heard correct. Something political's going down and he wants to keep an eye on things.”

“Okay, sure, great, awesome, whatever. Just get us involved in more political shit, why not? That's fine; I'm sure we didn't have enough people riding our bulges anyway. Given any thought to how we can piss off the Shahdom next?”

“Will you relax, Captor? The man's no threat to anyone unless he whips out the stick he's got shoved up his ass and starts beating people with it. What's the worst —”

“No.”

“That could —”

“You'll kill us all you moron.”

“ _Haaaaaaaappeeeeeeeen?”_

Sollux's shoulders drooped in defeat. “You get off on this, don't you? Like you literally cannot achieve climax unless you're tempting fate. Is that's what all this shit is about? Don't answer that, I could go the rest of my life without knowing and die chipper as hell because of it.” He removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “Could you do me a favor and use your panjacking powers to take a peek in my head and see what I've got repressed up there that's keeping me here? Seriously, help me figure out why I'm still putting up with you.”

“Captor, last time I took a peek at your mind it almost gave _me_ a panic attack. I dunno how you survive with all that crap you keep pent up in there, but if I had to guess I'd say you stick around because I pay way more than any sane troll would to listen to you whine night in and night out.”

“God I fucking hate you. It's like... anti-caliginous hatred. I'm getting rendered sterile by how much I loathe you.”

“Hate me all you want, it sounds like I'm doing a public service by keeping you from producing descendants. All I care about is whether or not the _Incarnadine_ is ready to sail.”

“Yeah, yeah, she's doing swell. Fucking outstanding, the shape she's in considering you're her captain.”

“There is the small matter of cold weather clothing, Captain,” Kanaya said, appearing with her customary silence and causing both of them to jump. “Specifically, we do not have enough of it and while I have tried to add to the stocks, demand outpaces supply.”

“God's fangs we gotta get you a bell to wear around your neck, Maryam,” Vriska said.

“I will look into it; but about the clothing —”

“Okay, so some people are getting a little nippy. How is this my problem?”

“If by 'nippy' you mean 'frostbitten' then your characterization is accurate. I have already had to remove two feet and a hand to prevent sepsis.”

“That's what we got peg legs and hooks for.”

Kanaya frowned at her.

“Oh come on, don't give me that look, Maryam.”

Kanaya continued to give her that look.

“Fine! Zhymet, get over here!”

The Principalities spook obliged, greeting Sollux and Kanaya with one of his prim bows.

“I don't believe,” he said, “I've had the pleasure of —”

“Blah blah blah, pleasure of meeting et cetera et cetera, God, we get it, you're a stiff. This is Captor my quartermaster-slash-navigator, ignore him, and Maryam my mediculler.”

Sollux muttered something uncharitable under his breath; Kanaya extended a hand, which was shaken.

“How may I be of service, Captain?” he said, introductions completed.

“The local yokels got a furrier or the like that might have cold weather gear on hand?”

“Boots and gloves are preferred, but anything would help right now,” Kanaya said.

Zhymet clicked his tongue, eyes rolled skyward in thought.

“I believe the town traderblock maintains a stock of such goods. The selection is likely poor and of rough quality, however.“

“Rough is fine, Mister Zhymet,” Kanaya said.

“Great!” Vriska said. “Gisigo, Shorne! Got a job for you!”

Two of the crew detached themselves from the activity on the deck and approached — Gisigo, twitchy as always, accompanied by a woman whose head had been denuded of every last trace of hair.

Vriska opened her coin purse and produced a silver tragan. “You two are getting in the longboat, heading back to town, and returning with all the fur clothing you can carry. Understood?”

Gisigo took the coin with a salute and an “Aye, Cap'n!”

“Shorne, I need you to make sure he _only_ buys clothing. That means no 'magic talismans,' no 'health tonics,' and especially no damn pets this time. Ain't looking for a repeat of the talking squawkbeast incident.”

“It's tradish'nal ta have one aboard, Cap'n,” Shorne said.

“Is it traditional for them to try to pull my hair out for a nest?”

“Ye did nae have ta shoot 'er.”

“Yes I did, actually. Get moving. Anything else I should know about, Maryam?”

“Save a respiratory infection going around that requires only recuperacoon rest and light work detail to cure, that about covers it.”

“Alright then, that's all I need from the pair of you. Be about your business. Zhymet, try to stay out of the way.”

Zhymet glanced around the deck, had to move aside to make room for a troll lugging a length of timber to pass, then ducked to avoid getting knocked out as the troll pivoted suddenly to address a friend.

“Is there such a place as 'out of the way' here?” he said.

“The chart room is usually quiet,” Kanaya said. “Unless the ship lurches and dumps Sollux's filing system all over you, in which case you have my condolences.”

“Nothing wrong with my filing system. _I_ know where everything is, that's all that matters. For real though, spook, don't touch my stuff. I'm not responsible for what happens if you do.”

Zhymet's expression suggested he was beginning to think he had made a mistake coming aboard.

“Pellew!” Vriska called, striding across the deck past Terezi. “ _PELLEW!_ God's fangs, you deaf... what, Pyrope?”

Terezi cocked her head, her grin widening. “Such a tight ship you run, Serket. One could almost forget it to be full of criminals.”

“Are you just standing here watching me give orders?”

“I am. What of it?”

“You need a hobby.”

“Seagrift-watching doesn't count? I could write reams of guidebooks on the topic. Here, for example, we have the lesser blue-breasted imperial seagrift. Her migratory patterns include —”

“Excuse me, 'lesser?'”

“You need something to aspire to, don't you? Anyway, you're allowing yourself to be distracted by me which suggests that there's something you want. Spill.”

Vriska moved in closer, trying to pitch her voice under the commotion that rose from the deck. “D'you wanna move your stuff into my quarters? Gotta shove the spook somewhere and —”

“Why, Captain,” Terezi replied, loudly for the benefit of the gambling trolls among the crew, “are you asking me to move in with you? Gosh, this is so sudden!”

“Tereziiiiiiii,” Vriska moaned through gritted teeth.

“You're so forward! I may faint from the scandal!”

“What did I do to you?”

Terezi giggled. Her efforts had already been rewarded with the sounds of another nearby argument between trolls who had leveraged themselves to the hilt in the name of guessing at her relationship status. “Yes, I will shack up with you, you prude.”

Vriska blew out a breath, as though she had been afraid that Terezi would say no for some obscure reason. Spinning on her heel, she returned to her persona as the Captain. “Killij!” she shouted. “Get Miss Pyrope's personal effects out of the berths!”

“Aye Cap'n!” came his reply. “Where to?”

“To...”

“Aye?”

“Quarters! Mine! Hup! Hup! Go, bulgereek! Move!”

Killij departed at speed.

“They know already, Vriska. You know that they know.”

“I'm the captain, I'm supposed to be —”

“Supposed to be a trollish version of one of Zhymet's messengers that stomps around doling out commands and abuse? Are you afraid they'll mutiny if you let it slip that you too can fall prey to softer emotions?”

Vriska shoved her hands in her pockets and slouched, regressing to age seven. “Wouldn't put it past some of 'em. Criminals, remember?”

“Even assuming they are so ambitious as to consider your relationship a show of weakness, wouldn't it be better to be bold about things rather than slink around like you have something to hide? Demonstrate to these malefactors that you don't give a shit; isn't that your metier _?”_

Vriska unslouched. “You're right, screw 'em. If they wanna think I've gone soft then they'll learn quick enough to the contrary.”

“So you'll stop acting so adorably flustered every time this comes up?”

“I'll try. Let's keep it to a minimum while I'm captaining, though. Kinda unprofessional otherwise.”

“You being a consummate professional and all.”

“Damn right I am.”

“Heard you was looking for me, Cap'n,” came Pellew's voice from behind Terezi as the master gunner lumbered up to them. “Begging your pardon, Miss Pyrope, hope I'm not interrupting anything.”

“No, we were just wrapping things up.”

“How are the nines, Pellew?” Vriska said.

“No cracking that I can see. Should be ready to bark at your order.”

“Good. I was thinking once we're clear of 'civilization,'” finger quotes, “we could do a few broadside drills to make sure the barrels haven't contracted in the cold. It'd really suck if we didn't find that out until we were already getting shot at.”

“As you say, Cap'n. I had the lads and lasses working at dry runs while we was waiting for you, so I think you'll like what you see.”

“You never disappoint, Wedzen. If I had a hundred of you, I'd —“

She was interrupted by the sound of ropes snapping and canvas unfurling from aloft, accompanied by panicked shouts. She looked upwards and frowned. “Goddammit, how do you mess up a tops'l gallant that badly? It ain't pan surgery. Dismissed, Pellew; I have to go show some trolls how to tie a knot.”

She took her leave, hauling herself into the rigging and made for the top of the masts with the aplomb of a spider in her web.

“Sure as hell don't envy those poor bastards,” Pellew said, watching her go.

“Do you find her to be an adequate officer?” Terezi said.

“I've sailed with her since she took command; wouldn't still be here if she wasn't. Why?”

“Curiosity. Sometimes I'm mystified at how she commands such respect from the rest of you. Excepting Sollux, of course.”

Pellew shifted, scratching at his stubble. “You ever heard of 'flogging 'round the fleet?'”

“It has 'flogging' right there in the name, so I presume it's a punishment.”

“It's where you get your ten, or twenty, or however many lashes, then they send you off to the next ship in the line and you get 'em all over again. And again, and again until they run out of ships or you're dead. That's how the Admiralty punished seditious behavior when I sailed with 'em, and 'seditious behavior' had a proper broad meaning back then too. I've spent thirty sweeps of my life in front of plenty of masts, ma'am. I seen plenty of captains of various stripes, and in my time with Captain Serket I ain't seen any lashings besides the tongue type. Make no mistake, she can cut to the bone when she feels like it; she's a hellion for sure...” He flexed his hand that bore the Sufferite branding scar on its wrist. “But there's benefits to hellions. So long as you're about your business smart and sharp you can be whatever you want and she won't care a whit. We don't have to be afraid that we'll say the wrong thing where the wrong sorts can hear. We don't have to hide in dark corners, fearing the sound of footsteps outside. We can just _be._ ”

He paused, radiating the attitude of a man with more to say but without the proper words to say it.

“Keep her safe,” he managed at last. “Someone has to.”

“Someone once told me the exact opposite, Pellew. They suggested I should watch my back around her.”

“That's their take on the matter; this is mine.”

“How much did you put on pale?”

“Twenty-five caegars. Thought it was obvious.”

Killij had by now returned from the berths, lugging Terezi's trunk. “Mind showin' me where you want this, ma'am?” he grunted, sweating under the strain of its weight even in the frosty air.

They edged their way aft, into the chart room under the quarterdeck where Zhymet was idly perusing a navigational codex, then through the door into Vriska's quarters.

They were not at all what Terezi had been expecting — it was not a large room, maybe thrice the size of her previous, cramped accommodations in the berths. There were no displays of opulence or trophies, no impractical luxuries, not even a heap of plunder. The only heap to be found was of dirty clothes — undershirts stained with the blue of Vriska's blood, a pair of trousers so encrusted with dried mud they could have stood up on their own, and her old greatcoat that had been rendered unsalvageable after the confrontation with Alecto in Ordred. Aside from that, the only furnishings were a recuperacoon, a doorless wardrobe that contained Vriska's dwindling collection of presentable clothing (as well as a truly inexplicable dress uniform with brass buttons dulled from lack of polishing and a huge moth-eaten hole in the shoulder), a rack of liquor and wine bottles, and a desk covered in stray bits of paper and a few books. Further books and paper were scattered at random throughout the chamber.

“Drop it anywhere,” Terezi said. “I don't think the captain cares where it ends up.”

Killij complied, thudding the trunk to the deck, then sat on it to catch his breath. “God's fangs woman, what are you carryin' in there? Lead ingots?”

Terezi ignored him, instead picking up a scrap of paper from under the desk — hastily sketched blueprints for refitting the _Incarnadine's_ topdeck with cannons, with rough mathematical equations calculating expenses and editorial notes scribbled off to the side:

_24 gundeck, 12 topdeck. 36 capacity after mod. Speed of a corvette 8ut punches like a 5th rate. Sexy as hell._

_2,000 per 9'', 3,500 per carronade. 24,000 – 30,000._

_8luh why do guns cost so much? Why do tu8er-eaters have to under-arm their boats? This is why they lost the war._

_Call in favor with Keiden for discount?_

Beneath that, a cartoony drawing of what she took to be Vriska holding two sacks of coins, wearing a pair of darkened glasses and chomping a cigar while a caricature labeled “wussy merchant losers” cowered from her:

_Yeah!!!!!!!!_

“Not a very complicated woman, are you?” she said to herself.

“What?” Killij said.

“I'm carrying the corpse of the last troll who didn't know when to fuck off.”

“Ah. Right you are, ma'am. I'll just... see myself out.”

“Smart man.”

The door clicked shut behind him.

At a lick, most of the books appeared to be various titles from something called the Jaynne's Naval Review line, their pages filled with schematics of warships and in-depth analyses of topics so absurdly niche that they even _tasted_ boring. Within ten seconds of studying one tome Terezi had already absorbed more information about cannon metallurgy than she had hoped to acquire in her entire life.

“God, you're a dork.” she snickered.

Abandoning examination of the books as being dull beyond words, she snatched up another bit of crumpled paper from a far corner of the room and gave it a taste. It was old, at least a sweep judging by the yellowing tang at its edges.

_vvris_

_despite your fuckin disrespect a my person at the regatta im gonna ovverlook the insult and extend another offer. im lookin at throwwin a garden party at the apex a this comin perigee. and youre wwelcome to attend. dress code is relaxed but come armed; i dont promise you a quiet evvenin if you catch my drift._

_eridan ampora_

_lord admiral and heir-consort_

Scattered near this letter were a selection of half-finished replies, ranging from surprisingly gentle:

_It's not you, it's me. You're a really hatea8le guy and I'm sure that you'll find someone who despises you in the way you deserve._

To the blunt and forthright:

_I think we should see other people._

To a final attempt written in a hand like Vriska had been fairly wasted and gripping the pen like chisel:

_Of course I c8n't get it thr8ugh your thick fucking cr8nial plates unless I crack them open and shout my r8sponse into your expos8d fucking pan matter, right? Fuck your feelings and F8CK YOU!!!!!!!!_

Finding herself guilty of voyeurism by epistle, Terezi balled the letters up and returned them to their rightful place in the corner. She was was struck by a sudden pang of pity — the ship was Vriska's kingdom, but instead of a throne room befitting a tyrant she had only this squalid chamber that more resembled an initiate's dormatoryblock at the Cruelest Bar, filled with dreary naval porn and reminders of bad couplings past.

She gave a couple of the bottles in the liquor rack a passing sniff, picking up distinct notes of anise. No, even the trolls in the Bar dorms wouldn't drink this shit.

It wasn't right, Terezi thought. A troll of Vriska's infamy should recline amid velvet cushions and tacky gilt and fine wine, with scantly clad slaves lounging around languorously. There should be peeled grapes involved, although Terezi was unclear on why anyone would bother with the trouble. Honestly, it was kind of disillusioning, like finding out all over again that the the twelfth perigee's eve corpulent hivetop prowler wasn't real.

She ceased her snooping at the sound of the clomping of boots approaching through the chart room, their owner exchanging a few muffled words with Zhymet in passing. The door opened and Vriska entered, not quite slamming it behind her but definitely applying more force than needed.

“Hey, Tez,” she said, dropping her hat on the desk and throwing her coat around the back of the chair. “Making yourself at home?”

“I find it lacking for my purposes.”

“I know, I know, it's a squealbeast sty. I've been meaning to do something about that, but —“

“If I'm to serve as your consort I shall at least require a fainting couch for when I am overcome by your rugged, uncouth mannerisms.”

“Consort? Sorry, do I have gills? Am I wearing big stupid epaulets? No? 'Cuz I think I'd need to have both before I start using words like 'consort.'”

Terezi giggled. “And even if you did, I'd break my cane over your head. Assuming it reappeared alongside your abrupt onset of seadwellerness.”

Vriska snapped her fingers. “That reminds me. Hold on a sec.” She began digging through her wardrobe, casting a few articles of clothing to the floor. “Got a surprise for you; been working on it since we left the Iron Horn.”

She removed a paper-wrapped package, about four feet long, and held it out to Terezi.

“A gift? For me?” Terezi gasped, fanning herself. “Goodness me, Captain Serket, I am stricken with emotion! The absence of a fainting couch becomes ever more pressing an issue!”

“Will you just open it, wiseass?”

Terezi did so, snatching it from her hand and shredding the wrapping with abandon. “Could it be a miniature hoofbeast? I've always wanted one, since I was a wigg —“

She stopped in mid-sentence, her grin disappearing.

A swordstick — its dragon's head handle and cane-sheath roughly carved from dark, lustrous hardwood and polished to a mirror sheen, a bright ring of gold marking the joining of the handle and sheath. Two rubies, smooth as river stones, glared back at her from the dragon's eyes.

Her jaw dropped.

“Think that's good? Draw steel, Advocata,” Vriska said, her lip curling with satisfaction.

Metal flashed under the lanterns, an arc of scent so clean as to be nearly white in Terezi's senses. She had expected the balance to be a shambles, cobbled together as it was by a sloppy mess of a woman. Instead it felt like an extension of her own arm — light and inexorably lethal.

“This is...” Terezi said, resisting the urge to run her tongue along the flat of the blade to get a better taste of the intricate, almost organic, banding that decorated its length.

“Maskos steel,” Vriska finished for her. “Entire guilds in the Shahdom live and die based on protecting the forging method. Thin as a rapier; cuts like an executioner's axe.”

“You had this just _lying around?”_ Terezi said.

“It's from a sword I won off a runaway excrucicubitor officer in Ordred in a game of cards. It was gathering dust, so I figured, hey, why not fob my second-hand trash off on the snooty chick. Carving the handle took a while, but it's not like I was sleeping much anyway.”

“You'd use that meat cleaver of yours over _this?”_

“The ricasso's too long. I don't like dainty dueling swords; they're for people who are used to having a pinkie extended all the time.”

“I could fillet you alive with this dainty dueling sword.”

“And that meat cleaver you're so disdainful of is dear to me as an old friend.”

“Ship, coat and sword — I'm beginning to suspect you anthropomorphize inanimate objects as confidants I could never hope to match.”

“Says the woman panting over a bit of fancy metal herself.”

The swordstick blade disappeared into its cane-sheath.

“So, you like it?” Vriska said.

“One last test awaits it,” Terezi replied.

Gripping the dragon's head, she raised her arm.

The brass cap enclosing the end of the cane struck the planks with a resounding gavel-like _clack!_

“Perfect.”

“I know what my consorts like.”

The dragon's head went arcing through the air towards Vriska's scalp only to be intercepted by her hand. She gave the swordstick a tug, jerking Terezi in closer to her. “Still faster'n you,” she said.

“Faster? Yes. Smarter? No!”

Terezi's leg hooked around Vriska's to pull her off balance and they went tumbling to the deck. Vriska landed flat on her back with Terezi straddling her, cane striking the planks next to Vriska's auricular.

“You overplayed your hand, Captain!” Terezi cried, leaning in to the seagrift. “Now you pay the price!”

“Do your worst; it was all worth it! I've seen something no one else in the world has — Advocata Pyrope looking surprised! I got your number! I got _allllllll_ your numbers!”

“True, your machinations caught me momentarily off-guard, but never again!”

Terezi grimaced, a needle of dull pain piercing through her abdomen.

“What's wrong?” Vriska said.

“Nothing.”

“Will you _please_ cut that out? You don't have to pretend in front of me, okay? I won't think less of you.”

Terezi rose, leaning heavily on her cane. “Why?”

“Why what?”

“I know how you work, Serket. Your worldview begins and ends with strength.”

After a bit of fumbling, through the power of teamwork they got Terezi maneuvered into the desk chair where she sat hunched over, waiting for the pain to pass while Vriska squatted next to her, holding her hand.

“You think I'm gonna think less of you for not being invincible?” Vriska said.

“Yes. It's weakness.”

“Wait, wait, hang on, explain this facet of the relationship to me — I'm allowed to spend all day sobbing into your hair about my stupid problems, but you're not allowed to feel pain? That's dumb, Terezi. Don't be dumb.”

“ _It's insufficiency!_ ” Terezi shouted, her fist slamming into the desk. “You don't let this sort of thing slow you down. I need to keep up or you're well within your rights to leave me behind.”

Her entire world was filled with the scent of blueberry concern as Vriska pulled her into a hug. “I'm not gonna ditch you just because you can't recover from getting gutstabbed in a couple weeks. You could've left me behind at Gerhae, or at Vennah, or at the Iron Horn, but you didn't. I don't believe in much but I believe in paying my debts, and I owe you everything. Don't you ever, _ever_ suggest I ought to welsh out on you.”

A finger placed under Terezi's chin raised her eyes to meet Vriska's — a pointless gesture, but the seagrift had long since stopped recoiling from Terezi's blank red stare.

“Wait here,” Vriska said. “I'm getting Maryam. We're taking care of this before it gets worse.”

She grabbed her coat off the back of the chair and her hat off the desk, slipping back into her identity of Captain Serket by the time she hit the door — long, purposeful strides with her hands clasped behind her back

* * *

 

Terezi was removed, leaning on Kanaya and Vriska's shoulders, down to the medical bay in the berths where she was fussed over in equal measure by both. At intervals, Kanaya pulled Vriska out into the berths proper to chew her out for not taking care of her partner.

“God's fangs,” Terezi heard Vriska protest during one of these sessions, “you think I can tell her to do anything?”

There was more to the argument, but it was all background noise to Terezi. She lay back on the cot and let the round of anesthetics she had been administered carry her off into a stupor.

“Do you understand,” Kanaya said, “that if she reopens the wound she could die? The fact that she is alive right now is nothing short of miraculous _._ ”

“I gathered.”

“Are you serious about your relationship with her?”

Vriska was outraged. “Oh _come on_ , you too? Why does everyone think I'm some kinda half-assed dithering globefondler? How long you been on this ship? You ever seen me do something _without_ being serious about it?”

“I have also observed you to brag about how many quote irons you have in the fire unquote, and I would like some reassurance that she is not just another iron to you.”

“I don't go slinging irons around all willy-nilly, like there ain't a purpose behind them!”

“You are so far doing a poor job of reassuring me.”

Vriska thumped the heel of her hand into her forehead. “Look, fussyfangs, I'm doing my best, swear to God I am, but if you think I'm difficult then boy oh boy you have never tried to get Pyrope to dial it back. I ain't gonna shove her up a tower like some wiggler-tale broad, or treat her like she's made of glass. She doesn't need to be treated like that.”

“And how, in your estimation, does she need to be treated?”

“Man, why're you giving me the third degree like this?”

“Because you are too dense to know when you are hurting people in passing. Now answer the question."

Vriska settled into one of her pubescent slouches in lieu of answering.

“Answer the question, Captain,” Kanaya repeated.

“She needs to be reminded that she ain't weak,” Vriska snapped, her voice filled with sudden anger. “I dunno why she thinks she is, but she does and it drives me crazy. Whatever the _fuck_ they did to her in the Bar, I wish I could get my hands on the people responsible. I can _feel_ her think it, don't even have to be a telepath, and it hurts so damn much I don't even know what to do with it. All I know for sure is that the screws are lucky the Eccsleaziarchy got to 'em before I did.”

Kanaya took a step back, unaccustomed to this kind of umbrage from Vriska on behalf of someone else.

“Does that meet with your approval, Maryam? Have I met your meddling standards concerning my associate?”

“Consider me reassured. I am sorry for doubting in your —“

Vriska waved her off, composing herself. “It's fine; you're just doin' what you do. Not like you can help being a big meddly meddler.”

Kanaya leaned against the bulkhead, looking amused. “I am going to have to learn to keep my meddling to myself now, lest I get you accused of infidelity. It will be hard; addiction is a powerful thing.” She tilted her head to one side and squinted. “That bruise on your neck is quite livid, by the way. An unfortunate location too — it could be mistaken for —”

Vriska seized the collar of her coat, yanked it upwards and hunched as deep into it as she could.

“Oh, I see,” Kanaya said, covering her mouth with her hand. “No wonder you insist on calling her your 'associate.' I thought it was just a funny affectation on your part. I mean, I suppose it is still funny, but —“

“Maryam! As your captain I order you to _can it!”_

“It is nothing to be ashamed of; vacillation is common, as I am sure Karkat could tell you. At great length. With charts, even.”

“Yep! Sounds good! Gonna get right on that one! Gonna go get hollered at by Vantas right now, as a matter of fact! Guess that means you gotta get back to work huh?! Man, that sucks! No rest for the meddlesome! Anyway, bye!”

She hustled down the length of the berths in the exact opposite direction of Karkat's nest in the hold, leaving Kanaya to ponder what kind of payout she could get for a long-odds bet on a very specific line.

* * *

 

The _Incarnadine_ departed shortly thereafter. Once Nezbor was behind the horizon, the guns were run out to conduct broadside drills, with Vriska walking the line of toiling gunners, pocket watch in hand to mark the seconds.

“Port, on my order!” she announced, followed a few moments later by: “Fire!”

The long nines thundered, setting the _Incarnadine_ to rocking.

“No contraction, Captain!” Pellew called. “They're in fine shape!”

“Good! Starboard, on my order! Fire!”

This process repeated three more times, with the two sides alternating fire at a brisk clip. Finally Vriska snapped her watch shut, beaming with pride. “One minute and forty seconds, reliably. Pity the poor idiot that tries to tussle with us now.”

“Maybe the Handmaid will, but we sure as hell won't!” shouted one of the gunner to the loud approval of the rest.

“Ha! Now that's what I like to hear! Mister Pellew, these trolls are on leisure for the rest of the night. I demand that they all get shitfaced and I will not hear any excuses to the contrary.”

“It's a terrible duty you ask, but we'll do our damnedest not to disappoint,” Pellew said, having to shout to make himself heard over the general excitement.

Meanwhile, in the berths, the night proceeded routinely for Kanaya. Examination of the sedated Terezi had revealed that, thankfully, her wound was only mildly inflamed. It would need tending to, but did not place her in immediate mortal peril — at least, that's what the writings of the _Incarnadine's_ past medicullers suggested. She had lately come to view them with suspicion; half the time their descriptions of medicull science sounded like so much hoofbeast droppings she couldn't help but wonder if it wasn't just her that didn't know what they were doing. She was no expert, but given that the experts seemed resolute in their belief that emetics could cure a fever she found it remarkable that anyone survived an encounter with a mediculler at all. Doing as little as possible had, in her experience, a better success rate than following accepted practices to the letter.

Somehow this left her feeling more frustrated than before. What was the point of being a half-competent impostor in a profession predicated on complete nonsense?

Aside from Terezi, there were few trolls in need of her attentions, leaving her at loose ends. There was the matter of the furs to deal with of course, but true to Zhymet's word they were so shoddy as to make her skin crawl.

“Where d'you want these, ma'am?” Gisgo had asked upon returning to the ship, arms loaded with the first of many installments of the wretched things.

“Over the side would be ideal,” she had replied.

Shorne had to grab Gisigo to stop him from carrying out the request. “She's nae bein' serious, boyo.”

Sooner or later she would have to get around to picking through them and distributing them to the crew, but she was inclined to leave it for later. Instead she decided to take a turn on the topdeck to clear her head. Now that the initial bustle of departure had settled and the crew had settled back into the routine of their watches there would be plenty of room for her to wander.

Fo'c'sle to quarterdeck rail and back again, she passed four complete circuits in quiet contemplation. Instinct told her that the sun would be rising soon behind the heavy blanket of clouds that stretched from horizon to horizon. Maybe its arrival would help put her at ease — she had always had an unusual affinity for its rays, even before her supernatural nature had been made apparent.

It must've been over a sweep since she had come aboard the _Incarnadine_ by now; it felt strange to acknowledge as much. There was a time, though it seemed a lifetime ago, that she was resigned to her fate in the brooding caverns. It was not a fate she would have chosen, but now that she did have the ability to choose one she found herself merely bereft of direction.

As she passed the chart room door on her sixth circuit of the boat, she heard voices within, one of them belonging to Captain Serket. Lacking anything better to do, she figured she may as well update the woman on the status of her... _associate._

Zhymet was leaning over a map of Ammala when she entered. “The coordinates of your destination put it as the old fortress island here,” he said, pointing at the largest island, “which means that your hand-off will be occurring in the natural harbor at the foot of the cliffs the fortifications are built on. There are further, smaller installations here, here, and here, on the neighboring islands that give complete coverage of the harbor and its approaches.”

“When you say 'fortress island,' I'm assuming you mean it's a Principalities thing,” Sollux said.

“It is.”

“Funny, I thought you guys weren't supposed to have anything out here.”

“We are not, this is true. However we did not abide by what you would call the spirit of the treaties that existed prior to the war, and established a whole chain of fortifications across the islands of the disputed territories, with the intention of making a naval war into a long, arduous slog for your empire. Of course, then your Admiralty drove straight through to our shores, leaving all our carefully laid plans at their rear, then smashed and scattered our navy, thus making the entire exercise pointless. I understand the name of the architect behind the island fortress scheme is now synonymous with wasted effort in our war schoolfeeders, and his creations lie abandoned.”

Kanaya cleared her throat.

Vriska looked up from the maps. “What's up, Maryam?”

“I thought you should know that Terezi is resting well. It is my belief that what she really needed was a nice, long, relaxed sleep more than anything. When she wakes up I will administer antiseptics and anti-inflammatories. I will also prepare a diluted anesthetic solution for the very likely event that she continues to refuse to take my advice seriously.”

“Thanks for keeping an eye on her. Anything else?”

“Not at this time, but I will keep you appraised of anything that comes up.”

An impulse struck her, as she prepared to leave, with such force that it stopped her hand above the doorknob. “Mister Zhymet,” her mouth said without her permission. “May I speak with you when you are done here?”

He inclined his head a few degrees. “Of course, we were nearly finished anyway.”

She waited for him on the deck, leaning against the mast, feeling like an idiot. Oh well, too late to back out now; she would only look more foolish if she ditched the man. A few minutes later, the chart room door opened to let its occupants disperse. Zhymet approached her.

“Mediculler Maryam. I am at your disposal.”

Kanaya cringed. “Sorry, could you not call me that? I find the title fits me badly.”

“Would 'Miss Maryam' suffice?”

“It would.”

“Very well, what can I do for you, Miss Maryam?”

She closed her eyes. “Okay, there is no way to make what I am about to ask not sound stupid, but I promise there is a point to it — you are a jade, correct?”

“I am.”

“You are known to be a jade and are not a fugitive or renegade of any sort?”

“No, I am a loyal servant of her regal grace the Tsaritsa and the Grand Principalities, long may they both live.”

“And you were not remanded to the brooding caverns?”

He gave her a quizzical look. “That seems to be the case.”

“So...” Kanaya paused, growing frustrated with the man's terseness. “So what is the deal with that?”

Comprehension dawned on him. “Ah, no, in the Principalities our caste is given a choice — we may serve in the brooding caverns or in the bureaucracy. I couldn't tell you why; it's probably just one of those bits of aristocratic logic predicated entirely on slotting nicely into the hemospectrum and literally nothing else. I chose the bureaucracy and wound up in the Infiltraitorous Bureau largely because I was, in the words of my instructors, 'an evil-minded little bastard.'”

“Why did you make that choice?”

Zhymet raised an eyebrow. “Miss Maryam, this is an oddly personal line of questioning, don't you think?”

Kanaya held up her hands. “I know, I know. I am sorry to pry, but... you are the only other jade I have seen a sweep — well, there were a couple others but they seemed like hoodlums — and I was hoping that based on some... shared understanding of blood you might be able to tell me what it is I am supposed to be _doing_ with myself.”

It had sounded stupid in her head and even stupider leaving her mouth, but to her surprise Zhymet's impassive expression changed, a few degrees at a time, to one of sympathy. “You aren't happy here?”

“I could be far worse off; I am not mistreated and I have freedom of movement, but... no, I am not. I could leave whenever I wish and yet I feel that doing so would be dereliction somehow. So I remain in this position that I know myself to be unfit for, doing as much harm as good.”

“You are too hard on yourself. I have seen no trolls stumbling around dying of disease, no hideous disfigurements, only a few amputations. The ship is healthy under your attentions.”

She gave him a dark look. “Because all those trolls _die_ , Mister Zhymet. I can amputate a limb or mend a minor wound, but beyond that it is entirely up to the whims of the Handmaid. For the trolls who really need help, I may as well not be here.” She sighed, eyes downcast. “But what is there for me to do otherwise?”

Zhymet considered her for a moment, then reached into his coat and produced a silver case containing a neat row of carefully hand-rolled cigarettes. He removed one and lit it with a match struck upon the sole of his shoe.

“I joined the intelligence services,” he said, pausing to blow a cloud of smoke, “because I preferred the feeling of the wind on my face to the stagnance of the caverns.”

“That I can understand,” Kanaya replied, luminescing briefly to emphasize her point.

Zhymet clicked his tongue. “You would not have done well down there, not in the least. I imagine that is another reason you feel you cannot leave?”

“It is not as if I can go and open a seamstress business as not only a rogue jade, but a rogue jade that must also stalk the day in search of blood to feed upon. Maybe in Port Ordred, but then I would be stuck there as surely as I would in the caverns. Not that there would not be _benefits_ to being stuck in Ordred, mind you.”

“Yours is indeed a complicated case. You'd think that they would have bred that bit of recessive unpleasantness out of us at some point, but I suppose that's what happens when you leave the job up to a huge immobile grub that can't even take care of itself.”

Kanaya laughed. “You make it sound so vulgar.”

“It is vulgar. And that is another reason I declined the honor — waiting hand and foot on a creature rendered helpless by its permanent spawning habits struck me as drudgery. Now, nurturing my nation? That was something I could get behind.”

“Oh dear,” she said with a wry smile and the tone of voice one would use upon discovering that a friend had come down with a terminal illness, “you are a patriot; I am so sorry. I never thought I would meet one of you in the wild.”

“ _Was_. The war and subsequent internal feuding quickly showed me that I was misplacing my affections. There's nothing so fatal to nationalism as discovering that after suffering a defeat the nation in question, instead of retreating to lick its wounds and come back stronger and wiser for the experience, tears its own innards out. And now I sit on a rock in the middle of nowhere, engaging in the tedious minutiae of subterfuge and counter-subterfuge, facilitating the schemes of imbeciles who care only for their own power, and I wonder why the hell I even bother. At least in the brooding caverns I would be warm.”

He took a final drag from his cigarette and flicked it into the water. “This has been a very roundabout way of saying that I wish I could help you understand what the purpose of a jadeblood is, because were I able to do so it would mean that I myself know. Unfortunately, to the best of my knowledge, our purpose is to be, well... _jaded._ ”

“That is what it looks like. Thank you for your time anyway.”

“Is there anything else I can do for you?”

“No, I have work to attend to. Certain tealbloods who shall remain nameless have been ignoring my advice to take things easy while they recover, and are now suffering the consequences.”

“As is ever our lot — tending to the ungrateful. Good night, Miss Maryam. Should you find the answers you seek, be sure to let me know what they are.”

* * *

 

“Hah!” Terezi crowed. “Did he really say 'nurturing my nation?'”

“That was the phrase he turned,” Kanaya replied as she dabbed at the hole in Terezi's back where Alecto's sword had exited with a cloth soaked in a fluid that was supposed to reduce inflammation. The wound was healing, but Terezi's insistence on cowing it into submission by remaining active was not helping matters.

“God you jades are all such _nerds!_ Why does everything come down to nurturing with you? Ow!”

“Sorry, my hand slipped. I think it is because the instinct is literally, unfortunately, in our blood.”

“With instinctual nerdery as its constant companion. _Ow!”_

“Goodness me I am clumsy tonight. Anyway, I found the notion kind of compelling.”

“A civil servant rainbow drinker! I regret I live in a world where this isn't a reality!”

“Our world contains a treasonous blind lawyer who sees by licking things and a mutant prophet with no indoors voice; I think we can only support so many bizarre individuals before we hit some manner of cap. It may be a matter of natural law.”

“Outside my jurisdiction; I am unable to comment.”

“For once.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A calmer, lighter chapter this time, to let us all decompress after the unrelentingly angsty bleakness of the last couple chapters. Also I remembered that there was an entire ship of folks who I hadn't let get a word in edgewise since approximately forever, so that needed fixing.
> 
> Oh, and please don't try to make any sense out of the economy I've invented for this world. I guarantee that if you even try to do some basic math to figure out conversion rates, you've put more thought into it than I have.


End file.
